By the early 1940s, the vast ATSF rail empire was promoting its colorfully named fast freight and passenger routes with dynamic graphical artwork depicting a large route map on one side of its freight cars, and one of 5 each service slogans on the other. The first application of this map/slogan paint scheme on FE-24 express 50' Auto Box cars occurred in late 1941. On this series of 200 cars (numbered 10000 to 10199) delivered by Pullman Standard painted in Pullman green with Dulux gold lettering, the circle/cross heralds were missing the familiar black background commonly used with lighter paint schemes. These cars reflected what was then a new trend in rail freight service; they were delivered with steam and signal lines, marker lamp brackets, and special paint jobs, for use in passenger express service. In addition, this series of cars was equipped with high-speed Allied Full Cushion pedestal trucks. Although these trucks did not provide the smooth ride of longer wheelbase trucks used with passenger-type head end cars, they were much more economical to build and were used only for freight transport. The Allied trucks were eventually replaced with roller bearing type trucks due to their tendency to derail. After 1964, all of the surviving express box cars in this series were repainted in dark gray with light gray lettering. Some of these cars lasted until the advent of Amtrack in 1971, with the last two being retired in 1980.
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