City of Los Angeles, 16th Train, 1950

Exterior Colors

The exterior colors of all units in the train are easy to establish: they were all Armour Yellow with Harbor Mist gray roofs, underframes, truck side-frames, and the bottom part of the sides. It wasn't until later that Union Pacific painted the truck side-frames in a silver color.

The General Specification for Pullman 6635 lot describes these colors from DuPont as follows:

E8A, E8B, E6B

In an article in the Winter 2008 issue of "The Streamliner" Don Strack and Dick Harley discuss in great detail the painting and lettering of the Union Pacific diesel locomotives during the time frame this train was in use. Following details are of interest:

Area	Notes
Side lettering	Painted, 13 1/2 inch red letters/numbers with black outline. Circular "O" and "C".
Ends	Follows the side paint scheme with Yellow/Gray and red stripes
Front	No "UNION PACIFIC" lettering across the hood
Trucks	Harbor Mist Gray
Nose Medallion	Three piece bolted medallion. Decal medallion came in 1953
Medallion text	"RAILROAD" was added on a third line after "UNION" and "PACIFIC" sometimes in 1950 and removed again in 1970

The only uncertain element in the three-line text in the nose medallion, but since the decision to use the word "RAILROAD" in the medallion was taken in 1949 it seems reasonable to believe that an engine that was delivered in 1950 would have the new medallion,

Interior Color Charts

The interior color schemes seem to have varied from car to car. This will be an effort to list the color schemes for as many cars as I can find. A great thanks goes out to the Illinois Railway Museum for providing the original Pullman Specifications and to the generous contributors on the Yahoo PCL list for the information in the charts.

The colors themselves are another problem. There may not be any preserved samples of all of them, so I am just guessing here and hoping that the differences will not be that noticeable inside the models. In those cases where a color has a similar name ("light blue", "maroon", etc.) for several cars, I have consistently picked the same color for all cars.

Lettering

Even though the basic, standard Union Pacific Streamliner lettering was in place in 1950, there are some cars that had a different lettering. As I discover them all I will list the differencies here.

Cafe-Lounge - Mission Inn

The Mission Inn was lettered with its number, LA-611, instead of its name in 1950.

Sleeper 10-6 - Pacific Island

The Budd 10-6 sleepers were delivered with the "UNION PACIFIC" lined up with the first window and not with the end of the car. This was changed somewhere after 1950. The Pullman Project lists the first paint change as happening in 1953, but I can not determine if this is the change where the UNION PACIFIC was moved.

Observation-Lounge - Sun Valley

The observation car Sun Valley still had the "CITY OF LOS ANGELES" on the letter board in 1950.

Acknowledgments

The trademark "Union Pacific" is used with permission of Union Pacific Railroad.