Vintage Trolley Color Pics (continued - page 2)

Sources

The most reliable way of determining color schemes is scratching the paint of an existing car and matching against known standards. Most of the time there is no existing car, so we are forced to rely on written descriptions, preferably the manufacturer's specifications or a journalist's description. Such things are hard to come by. Next best is an artist's rendition - and here we have lots of room for latitude depending on the skill and intention of the artist. With these things in mind, I'm pleased to be able to present a series of 10 paintings produced by the Standard Motor Truck Company, maker of trolley trucks. These illustrations were used for marketing trolley trucks, but the paintings appear to have been made at the car manufacturer's plant. In other words, it's reasonable to assume these were correct renditions of the cars as delivered, or intended to be delivered. Even there we have reason to pause. Trolley companies often changed their minds about color schemes, sometimes rather quickly. Using the Metropolitan again, one of the paintings shows Metropolitan semi-convertible #282 in green with red doors.


Standard Motor Truck Company marketing illustration.

The next postcard shows a smaller Metropolitan sem-convertible dressed in green, but with cream above the belt rail.


Postcard view of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. NY Railways cars are correctly shown in green and cream.

Is this another example of artistic license by the person coloring the photograph to enhance the postcard? Probably not. Builder's photos of Brill cars in Metropolitan livery, though black and white, clearly show a two-color scheme. The dates are important, though, because the first, from 1905, shows the lighter color below whereas the latter shows the lighter color above. (I assume it's a later photo because it is from the 1911 Electric Railway Dictionary and the car's Pay As You Enter Design is newer than that of the 1905 open-vestibule car.)


Metropolitan car pictured in a 1905 article in the Electric Railway Journal article describing the car.


Metroplitan car pictured in the 1911 Electric Railway Dictionary. PAYE design is newer than the open-vestibule design, above.

In fact, most photos I have of Green Line cars show the same two-tone color scheme as the PAYE car above.


1935 photo of a Green Line car.

My guess is both artists - the one who illustrated the all-green version in the Standard Motor Truck rendition and the one who colored the 34th Street postcard - were correct, and that the Metropolitan quckly changed its color sceheme from all green to green and cream - perhaps at the time of one of its several rebirths from foreclosure. It's also possible that the original painting was based on a prototype or on written specs that were changed before the cars were delivered. If I had to choose a color scheme for a Metropolitan model, it would be the two-tone one with cream windows and doors.

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