D&RG Freight Car Red
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Denver & Rio Grande Freight Car Red
Up to the introduction of Freight Car Red, the Denver & Rio Grande and associated companies used Prince's Metallic paint. The exact date of change from Prince's to Freight Car Red is currently unknown; the earliest reference to the latter is a paint specification from 1921. Freight Car Red was supplied by Sherwin-Williams (as evidenced by paint shop data on the 01100-series wood cabooses outshopped in 1928) and Kohler-McLister, a local Denver company.
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. [1]
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. [2]
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