Nothing dates a Canadian layout faster than a locomotive in the wrong paint. Put a wet-noodle CN unit next to a 1990s CN North America hopper and anyone who knows the prototype will spot it immediately. This is a working guide to what each railway wore and when, so you can buy models that belong together.
Dates below are approximate where the record is genuinely unclear, and we say so.
Canadian National
Green and gold, to about 1961
The pre-noodle look. Passenger cab units in olive green with gold-yellow lettering, "CANADIAN NATIONAL" spelled out, the tilted-wafer herald and maple leaf on the nose. Road freight units generally black and green with a yellow nose.
Manufacturers usually label this "CNR 1954 Scheme". A note on terminology: the hobby calls it green and gold, CN's own wording was green and black, and the green predates 1954 — so treat 1954 as a standardisation date rather than an origin.
The wet noodle, 1961 to 1973
The famous one. Allan Fleming's CN symbol — a single continuous line forming C and N — was introduced in December 1960 and started appearing on equipment in April 1961. Dropping the "R" made it work in both languages. Modellers call it the wet noodle, the wiggly worm, or the bent paperclip.
How it was applied matters, because the two versions look quite different:
- Freight hood units: black body, red-orange ends, light grey noodle on the long hood. No stripes.
- Passenger cab units (F and FP units): black body, red-orange nose, and grey stripes at roughly 30 degrees sloping up toward the rear. This is the classic zebra stripe look, and the stripes mirror on each side.
Freight cars went mineral brown with a grey noodle; covered hoppers grey with red; cabooses red-orange with grey. Cars were lettered Canadian National on one side and Canadien National on the other — a detail worth checking on models. From May 1966 coloured door panels marked service type: yellow for newsprint, green for forest products, red for refrigerated.
One practical note: the specified grey reads as near-white against black, and manufacturers interpret it differently. Expect some variation between brands on the same shelf.
Stripes, about 1973 to the early 1990s
With the arrival of comfort cabs in 1973 the noodle left the hood sides and was replaced by diagonal stripes, with the whole cab painted red-orange and a vertical break where it met the black hood. These stripes run at about 45 degrees — visually distinct from the 30-degree passenger stripes of the previous era.
This is what most people mean by "CN stripes" or "sergeant stripes", and it is the dominant CN appearance for roughly two decades. If you model the 1970s or 1980s, this is your scheme.
CN North America, 1992 to about 1995
A short-lived scheme with the noodle superimposed on a grey stylised map of North America, introduced mid-1992 to advertise CN's reach from Alaska to Mexico. Rebuilt SD40u 6000 was first; 25 new Dash 8-40CM units followed in late 1992.
The map was dropped from locomotives by roughly the mid-1990s, but freight cars in CNNA survived far longer — into the 2010s in some cases. So a CNNA covered hopper in a 2005 train is perfectly correct while a CNNA locomotive would not be.
Modern CN, mid-1990s to today
Black body, red nose and ends, white noodle — a direct descendant of 1961 but with the red carried much further back across the cab. An interim variant added www.cn.ca lettering around the turn of the century.
Our current CN stock is strongest here and in the stripes era. See Rapido for CN diesels and passenger equipment, Atlas for Dash 8-40C units, and Bowser for Executive Line power.
Canadian Pacific
Tuscan red and grey, to 1968
The traditional CPR identity: the beaver-on-shield herald with the "Spans the World" slogan, maroon-tuscan and grey. Freight equipment ran plain block lettering before 1951 and script lettering from about 1963. Service colour-coding began creeping in during 1967–68 — silver reefers, yellow-orange insulated boxcars — just ahead of the rebrand.
CP Rail multimark and Action Red, 1968 to 1987
A complete corporate reinvention by Lippincott & Margulies of New York: the bold italic "CP Rail" wordmark, the multimark — the rectangle-plus-half-circle-and-triangle device modellers call the Pac-Man — and Action Red, an orange-leaning vermilion. The first units painted were C-424s #4242 and #4239 in September 1968. (Sources give the public unveiling as either June or October 1968.)
This era is where CP modellers get particular, because the striping changed repeatedly over nineteen years:
- 1968–1975, "candy stripe": 5-inch red and white nose stripes, full-hood-height multimark at the rear, white number panels with black numbers. CP Rail lettering sat high on the hood doors until about 1972, then lower.
- Oct 1975 – Dec 1976: first wide stripe — 8-inch stripes, large rear multimark, and a white reflective stripe along the frame.
- Jan 1977 – Feb 1979: second wide stripe — no frame stripe, reflective circles along the frame instead. All new SD40-2 deliveries came this way.
- Feb 1979 – Aug 1987: third wide stripe — 8-inch stripes on the nose only, with a smaller multimark on GM hood units. This is the longest-lived and most numerous variation, and the safest default for a 1980s CP layout.
Freight cars were colour-coded by service: red for general, black with a white circle and red triangle for bulk, green for newsprint, yellow for insulated cars and cabooses, silver for mechanical reefers.
No multimark, 1987 to the early 1990s
The multimark was dropped from CP's corporate identity in 1987, with the first locomotive repainted without it in September 1987. Eight-inch stripes now appeared on both nose and rear, with Action Red number panels and white numbers.
CP Rail System and the dual flag, early 1990s to 1997
After the Soo Line and D&H consolidations, "CP Rail System" appeared with a dual Canadian and U.S. flag logo below the cab. Action Red gave way to the slightly different System Red in 1993.
A detail worth knowing: the dual-flag branding was applied to locomotives only, not freight equipment. A dual-flag boxcar would be wrong. Yard switchers got the red and lettering but no flag logo.
The beaver returns, September 1997 onward
The corporate name reverted to Canadian Pacific Railway in 1996 and the beaver herald returned to locomotives on 14 September 1997 — the "golden beaver" in hobby shorthand. Units painted in the gap between early July and mid-September 1997 got neither the dual flag nor "System" text, which is a nice oddity if you like transitional equipment.
From 2012 the shield was paired with a bolder modern CP mark; manufacturers generally catalogue this separately from the 1997 version.
CPKC, 2023 onward
The Canadian Pacific Kansas City merger completed on 14 April 2023 and the new livery was unveiled that June: essentially the CP beaver scheme with angled yellow and black bands at the rear of the long hood as a nod to KCS, "CPKC" in white, and three national flags below the cab windows. Our CPKC stock is early days — a few Kato ES44AC units and Micro-Trains freight — and will grow as manufacturers catch up.
VIA Rail, briefly
VIA took over CN's passenger services in 1977 and CP's in 1978. The classic blue and yellow scheme ran from the mid-1970s well into the 1990s and is the longest-serving VIA look. The Renaissance scheme — grey, green and yellow — arrived in the 2000s on rebuilt F40PH-2D locomotives to match the Renaissance car fleet.
Those Renaissance cars have an unusual history: built by Metro-Cammell in the mid-1990s for a cancelled Channel Tunnel overnight service, bought by VIA in 2000 and in service from 2002. They are narrower than Budd stainless equipment because they were built to the British loading gauge, and they have plug doors — so they look distinctly un-North-American, which is exactly why modellers like them.
We stock VIA in both scales, including Rapido's Renaissance F40PH-2D and Bachmann's Siemens Charger and Venture equipment for the modern era.
Getting the era right
The simplest discipline is to pick a year and buy to it. A 1975 CP layout wants candy-stripe or first-wide-stripe units and multimark freight cars; a 2005 CN layout wants modern noodle power and can legitimately include a surviving CNNA hopper.
If a model comes in the wrong scheme, repainting and decalling is very achievable — Microscale produces CN and CP lettering sets in both scales, and Tru-Color matches the prototype colours including CP and CN schemes. See Decals and Paint & Weathering.
Where to shop the eras
For Canadian prototype the essential ranges are Rapido Trains (Ontario-based, and the deepest Canadian catalogue anywhere), Bowser, Atlas, Broadway Limited and Aurora Miniatures for modern Canadian freight cars.
Browse Locomotives and Rolling Stock, or if you are still setting up, start with choosing a scale and choosing track.
Modelling a specific year or subdivision and want to know what is correct? That is our favourite kind of question — ask us.