Re: Box Car Roof Walks

Dorman's "Rocky Mountain Railroads" vol.1 shows some great color shots by Rasty Rasmussen taken in the last years of the RGS. Many are taken from the cupola of the caboose and show what looks like painted roof walks.
Our crew has redone the roof walks on 8 of the stock cars on the C&TS, a handful of 3000 box cars and 3 of the 4000 series outfit cars. All showed evidence that they had been painted at one time. THe six sheep cars came from behind the Alamosa round house and had not seen any paint since RG days. I was somwhat surprised to find a lot of paint remaining on the undersides of the stock car roof walks. The other cars had been on the C&TS for some time so could have been painted by the freinds.
Preservation being of more importance than safety on the display cars, we painted all roof walks and platforms.
THe evidence of paint was very old on the stock cars and seemed to be in keeping with the general paint condition on the entire car. Looks like they were maybe painted along with the car. The stock car roof walks also showed some evidence of
being flipped over and reused at some time on one of the cars.
I agree in general with John's findings that the roof walks were painted at one time but the practice was discontinued in later years. Painting, in general was almost discontinued toward the end, but I agree that the painting of roof walks was discontinued prior to that.
I am convinced enough that all my model's roof walks are painted car color before being heavily weathered.