Why unpainted?

[williamn]

As a newcomer to these shores, I wondered if there was a particular reason why US trains are unpainted, in contrast to those back in Europe?

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Most likely to keep maintenance costs down as painted cars would need to be shopped regularly to be repainted or else they would go to looking pretty nasty. As is Amtrak has to struggle to maintain the equipment as it stands now.

 

[Acela150]

What do you mean by "unpainted"?

Steve

 

[Alexandria Nick]

I always assumed it was simply a style choice. Stainless steel coaches have been a popular choice ever since the Art Deco era and large scale use of stainless steel as a construction and vehicle material are a very American taste. The CB&Q Zephyrs, B-29s, the Chrysler Building, Santa Fe high levels, American Airlines livery, and on and on.

 

[Trogdor]

I get your point, but airplanes aren't made out of stainless steel.

 

[RampWidget]

With aircraft, there's also a weight savings for an unpainted aircraft vs. a painted one. It's significant enough to be reflected in the allowable gross weight of the aircraft.

As for Amtrak, I agree with Alexandria Nick on the aesthetic value of (clean, please) stainless steel for rolling stock. Not to mention the cost savings and not haviing to maintain the painted exterior, as OlympianHiawatha pointed out.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

With aircraft, there's also a weight savings for an unpainted aircraft vs. a painted one. It's significant enough to be reflected in the allowable gross weight of the aircraft.

With high speed aircraft, it also has to do with heat and temperature. The Concorde painted in Pepsi livery, had to have its max speed reduced.

 

[user 1215]

American Airlines has traditionally not painted their planes with any more than the red and blue stripes to save approximately 500-750 pounds of weight. Save weight, save fuel. Save fuel, save $$$. The polished aluminum look ain't half bad, either. Lately, advances in paint processes as well as the paint itself has made the weight of paint much less.

Please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that most of the carbodies of trains in Japan have traditionally been steel. Not stainless. Therefore, paint was essential to prevent corrosion. I believe they are transitioning to aluminum shells over steel bodies, but I really don't know. I would think that Europe has a similar history. The stainless steel carbodies in the US have not required paint, confounding local artists in urban areas such as NYC, encouraging them in the past to paint the vehicles at no cost to the owners of the rail fleet.

IE:

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong.

You have to ask? :giggle:

 

[Trogdor]

With aircraft, there's also a weight savings for an unpainted aircraft vs. a painted one. It's significant enough to be reflected in the allowable gross weight of the aircraft.

With high speed aircraft, it also has to do with heat and temperature. The Concorde painted in Pepsi livery, had to have its max speed reduced.

That only applies to supersonic aircraft, of which there are currently none in operation in civilian roles anywhere in the world.

I'm curious about the true cost/weight savings of not painting an airplane. After all, in an industry that is famous for pinching pennies, if flying airplanes polished rather than painted truly had a measurable savings, every airline in the world would be doing so.

As it stands, only a small few ever did during the jet age, and the most well-known, American, is abandoning that (though it mostly has to do with the new fleet of planes which are coming in, which cannot be polished anyway).

 

[BCL]

Well - locally Caltrain has a minimal paint job on its stainless steel Nippon Sharyo cars. They have lots of dents over the years, and I think that the paint can probably start chipping off each time one of those dents are made. Their Bombardier Bi-Levels are all painted. I though they were aluminum, but I haven't seen any from any rail service that have gone without a full paint job.

It's somewhat of the diner look that was popular in the 1930s onward.

 

[DET63]

One of United Airlines' paint schemes:

I seem to remember reading somewhere that a lot of pilots for United and/or other airlines didn't like this scheme, since the abundance of gray made the planes hard to see in the fog and rain.

Amtrak paint scheme:

This Amtrak paint scheme (from MSTS?) is, I suppose, the closest to the United Airlines scheme. I don't know how much it would affect visibility in inclement weather.

 

[BCL]

With aircraft, there's also a weight savings for an unpainted aircraft vs. a painted one. It's significant enough to be reflected in the allowable gross weight of the aircraft.

With high speed aircraft, it also has to do with heat and temperature. The Concorde painted in Pepsi livery, had to have its max speed reduced.

That only applies to supersonic aircraft, of which there are currently none in operation in civilian roles anywhere in the world.

I'm curious about the true cost/weight savings of not painting an airplane. After all, in an industry that is famous for pinching pennies, if flying airplanes polished rather than painted truly had a measurable savings, every airline in the world would be doing so.

As it stands, only a small few ever did during the jet age, and the most well-known, American, is abandoning that (though it mostly has to do with the new fleet of planes which are coming in, which cannot be polished anyway).

Locally, BART has always gone with mostly unpainted brushed aluminum shells. When the original BART cars were gutted and refitted, the aluminum shells were in excellent operating condition. Of course they had dents and everything after about 25 years of service, but they didn't need to be replaced.

I took an entry level materials science class, and in that class I learned that bare stainless steel and aluminum have pretty good resistance to corrosion. Stainless steel gets it from the chromium, which oxidizes extremely rapidly and forms an almost instant coating that protects it from any further corrosion. Aluminum has similar characteristics, although it can still corrode in extremely wet or salty environments. Even if these metals get scratched, a new protective coating fills in almost immediately. Continuous abrasion is typically what causes these materials to corrode prematurely.

 

[BCL]

This Amtrak paint scheme (from MSTS?) is, I suppose, the closest to the United Airlines scheme. I don't know how much it would affect visibility in inclement weather.

Enough blue visible head-on to not be an issue. Besides that, the flashing lights would probably be the most visible sign. Airplanes don't typically have headlamps.

 

[user 1215]

This Amtrak paint scheme (from MSTS?) is, I suppose, the closest to the United Airlines scheme. I don't know how much it would affect visibility in inclement weather.

Enough blue visible head-on to not be an issue. Besides that, the flashing lights would probably be the most visible sign. Airplanes don't typically have headlamps.

Other than landing lights, inspection lights, logo lights, position lights, anti-collision lights. ALL civil aircraft have landing lights for use at night. Commercial aircraft are required to use their landing lights even during the day for visibility.

 

[leemell]

This Amtrak paint scheme (from MSTS?) is, I suppose, the closest to the United Airlines scheme. I don't know how much it would affect visibility in inclement weather.

Enough blue visible head-on to not be an issue. Besides that, the flashing lights would probably be the most visible sign. Airplanes don't typically have headlamps.

Other than landing lights, inspection lights, logo lights, position lights, anti-collision lights. ALL civil aircraft have landing lights for use at night. Commercial aircraft are required to use their landing lights even during the day for visibility.

And at many airports the tower uses landing lights to ID planes.

 

[Ryan]

Landing lights aren't on for the vast majority of the time that the aircraft is in flight.

Planes are damn hard to see during the day time, and the strobes are nigh invisible until you're right on top of each other.

 

[PerRock]

It's probably also cheaper not to do a full paint job.

The Genesis units are all painted, albeit mainly a grey color. But they also have a retro-reflected stripe down the side (the red stripe) most airlines don't have retro-reflectiveness.

Also I believe that photo is taken from Railworks.

peter

 

[user 1215]

Landing lights aren't on for the vast majority of the time that the aircraft is in flight.
Planes are damn hard to see during the day time, and the strobes are nigh invisible until you're right on top of each other.

That is why in inclimate weather, you don't turn your strobes on, but rather are required to have an instrument flight plan which means that 98% of the time you're in radar contact.

 

[Ryan]

Interesting, but not terribally relevant.

 

[rickycourtney]

Back to the original topic...

I believe that the Superliner cars don't have a drop of paint on them. If I recall correctly... The stripe under the windows is made from a Mylar film while the Amtrak logo and lettering on the car are all decals.

But the locomotives are painted. The Genesis locomotives (P42, P40 & P32AC) have the blue wave painted onto exposed metal. But the older P32-8WH's are completely painted. They have a light grey color that maches the silver color of bare metal.

 

[battalion51]

If that was once the case, I don't believe it is anymore. I seem to recall reading something a few years ago about a new paint stripping method Amtrak started to employ using high pressure water. They started to use this methodology when the fleet was being repainted from Phase III/IV/V into IVb.

 

[williamn]

Interesting.

The only trains back in the UK (home) which I remember not being painted were London Underground ones, which till about 15-20 years ago were just the bare metal. A red white and blue livery was applied after, I think as a grafftti deterrent, as it was easier to clean off a painted surface. Most British trains now have just a basic undercoat I think and then the 'paint' is actually usually vinyl stickers on top.

 

[jis]

Landing lights aren't on for the vast majority of the time that the aircraft is in flight.
Planes are damn hard to see during the day time, and the strobes are nigh invisible until you're right on top of each other.

That's why they invented TCAS

 

[user 1215]

Unfortunately, most single engine airplanes - perfectly legal to fly in the clouds in controlled IFR - can't afford to include TCAS in their stack.

I sat in a brand new GIV once and the pilot switched on TCAS while we were on the ground, and I got to see all the airplanes in the pattern at that airport. Way cool!

I think we've digressed..... A wee bit.