Correcting my mistake: speeder paint scheme

The other day I posted a description of the new HO scale Fairmont M-19 speeders (or motor cars) produced by Ken Harstine. I knew they were Daylight Orange and so painted them. Ken included a decal sheet for diagonal black stripes on the front or wind screen, but as I had not seen photos from my era (early 1950s) of speeders with stripes, I omitted them. The post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/07/speeders-or-are-they-motor-cars.html .

Promptly upon posting, I heard from former SP employee Mike Yoakum, who didn’t criticize, just sent me the Common Standard drawing CS 1942, which is shown below. This was adopted in 1946, and I don’t think it could be more clear. Incidentally, note two points of terminology: SP called them “motor cars” in this drawing, though SP paperwork like special instructions and train orders often refer to them as “track cars;” and the front wind barrier is called a “windshield,” though not transparent like the ones we are familiar with on automobiles. It certainly serves to shield occupants from the wind.

This pretty conclusively shows that stripes were adopted in April of 1946, so obviously I had to go back and correct my speeder models! Now I was really grateful for Ken’s nice decals. Here are the three speeders with properly striped “windshields,” as I now know to call them in SP parlance.

They are now a little more eye-catching on the layout too, as long as they are posed on the track turnouts as headed toward the viewer. I’ve been told that when pulling speeders off the track, crews preferred to swing them so they were facing back toward the track, not away from the track — but not a hard and fast rule.  

Thanks again to Mike Yoakum for correcting my misunderstanding and backing it up with the ultimate authority, a CS drawing.

 Tony Thompson