D&RG Freight Car Red

Historic Paint / Specific Colors / D&RG Freight Car Red

Denver & Rio Grande Freight Car Red

Date of introduction is currently unknown. The earliest reference to the paint is a paint specification from 1921.

1921 Paint Specification

Freight Car Red

Pigment: 25-55%
Vehicle: balance
Pigment Analysis:
Iron Oxide 80%
Inerts: 20%

Vehicle shall consist of phenolic or alkyd varnish or combination of the two

Kohler-McLister Paint Company

“Komac made a high-quality paint. My father, as an architect and general contractor, used Komac almost exclusively. At that time the national brands such as Benjamin Moore were often very poor quality paint (Sherwin-Williams and PPG being the exception).” - Mark Hemphill, author of Union Pacific’s Salt Lake Route

Upon abandoning Prince’s Metallic as the standard brown paint for rolling stock, the D&RG turned to a local company, Kohler-McLister, to supply its paints. Kohler-McLister’s headquarters were located on the corner of West 13th Ave. and Osage Street in Denver, only a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande’s Burnham Shops, with a downtown showroom at 1623 Arapahoe Street. While they specialized in structural paints and manufactured the Jersey Cream and Brown used on railroad buildings after 1915, they also provided the Rio Grande’s freight car colors, from the black asphaltum used to protect ironwork (“dries quickly to a brilliant jet-black finish” according to their 1929 catalog) to D&RGW Freight Car Red, which they listed as KM-91 Box Car Red.

Henry Kohler, the first namesake for the company, was born in Toledo Ohio on 6 October 1854 to German immigrants. As a young man he traveled to Germany and studied chemistry at Tubingen University; returning to the United States in 1873 he became a druggist and dabbled in livestock trading and freighting, which took him to Colorado in 1876 to establish the drug company Kostich & Kohler. He began mixing and selling paint in 1903, building up an enterprise of 35 employees and around 20 traveling salesmen doing business in six states by 1918.

Frank McLister, the other partner, was known as the “youngest paint manufacturer.” The son of the Canyon City Penitentiary warden who oversaw the incarceration of Colorado Cannibal Alferd Packer, he started as a junior employee under Kohler but quickly worked his way up to be full partner and manager of the Kohler-McLister company. His position as vice-president of Kohler-McLister led him to marry the daughter of prominent mining engineer Max Boehmer in June 1911.

Kohler-McLister manufactured under several trademarks, the two most popular being Komac and Vi-Ko.

Historic Railroad Paint Color Index / Specific Colors / D&RG Freight Car Red