Did the Blue Comet's cars had REALLY dark-green tinted windows?

Hi Lee,

I have not seen the new Blue Comet Heavyweight passenger cars yet, but I wouldn't doubt that they are green tinted windows.  I have the new Southern Crescent cars and have seen the Santa Fe Heavyweights.  They are both green tint.  What I do like about the Southern Crescent's is that they go well with the paint scheme.  It looks fine on the Santa Fe's, as well.  Also, the interiors are nicely detailed with passengers and, believe it or not, sinks and toilets too!!

My biggest pet peeve with Lionel's catalogs is that they do not publish actual photos of the items.  Rather, they give you an artist's rendition of what the item may look like, thus, leading to many unexpected and sometimes not so pleasant surprises.  I would like to see an actual photo of maybe a prototype of the item which might lead to less disappointments from customers.

I really dislike the green tinted windows.  They are going on mine.  I really don't care if it prototypical. 

Blue liner, I'm with you on that catalog illustration business.  I've been disappointed when a preordered item didn't match up.

Okay, I agree I should have posted pictures.  I'm dismayed the green does not show up as prominently in photos - in person it looks at least twice as dark.

From the old pictures, it looks as if the windows were clear or lightly tinted.

One item of note if you are a rivet counter. I am sure no Blue Comet expert, but it looks as if  from what I have read and looking at the pictures, all of the cars except for the baggage car had 2 axle trucks, not 3 axle trucks.

http://www.philly.com/philly/b...-drenching-rain.html

http://www.railroad.net/forums...hp?f=127&t=94917

I cancelled my early order of Blue Comet Cars because I decided against the 18" length. I really like 15" cars much better. OMO. Those Green Windows would have made me cancel twice. I have the Blue Comet engine and like it alot, I am still trying to understand why Lionel made the engine to run 036 and the cars to run 054.

I purchased the MTH R50B Reefers in the CNJ blue comet colors and run a Blue Comet freight set. (I Know)

Considering the Blue Comet whistle and the green windows in the cars, Thats 2 for 2, add the 036 engine and the 054 cars and we have 3 for 3.

Just out of interest, how do they look when powered with the interior lighting on? Depending upon the strength and colour of the lighting, this can have a considerable effect upon how the glazing looks. 

Actually, I haven't put it on and run it.  I imagine it looks, ah, "interesting."  I promise to take a picture of that this evening. 

I think Nicole has a good point, in that things may appear differently when lit.  However, I'll agree with Lee here about the green tint against the blue cars -- not the best look, but not a show-stopper if you need a set of these cars.  I passed on them, 'cause I have the complete set from 2002.

Lee, I have a set of silver aluminum passenger cars from a few years back -- the 15" Burlington/California Zephyr cars with detailed interiors that also have the green tinted windows.  And honestly, the green tint looks MUCH nicer against silver aluminum than it does against certain color schemes (like the blue used for the Blue Comet).

David

I don't think tinted windows were in use in the 1929-1941 time frame of the Blue Comet.

Rusty

The Alton set came with the green windows too.

Nicole,

The tinted windows look fine on the Southern Crescent when the interior lights are on during night runs.  Actually, they don't look that bad during the day either (see pic below.  Note - interior lights were on).  I'll take some pics later tonight and post them.  But I'm with Lee and David, I'm not so sure that the color clash looks great on the Blue Comet cars.  On aluminum polish, I bet it looks great.

I imagine green windows look good on the Southern Crescent, etc., but here in particularly, it looks hideous.  I will consider if and how they look when lit, but I think the tined windows are going, maybe this afternoon, but certainly this weekend.

At least see how they look lit up before you add yet another project to your to do list.  Not sure why Lionel chose green tinted windows on The Blue Comet passenger cars and right now I don't think they look that bad, but you would think they would have been clear back in the 1920s and 1930s.

If you do decide that you change them out, let us know how easy or hard it was to do in case others want to follow in your footsteps.

Doesn't look right to me. They should not be green.

What is it with Lionel and passenger car windows these days?

It looks as if Lionel is still banking on its heavyweight car molds from the 90s anyway. Would have liked to have seen something fresher by now. I don't know if GGD or another higher end company makes Blue Comet cars, but as usual that's the way to go if you want a nicely accurate set.

I don't think the scale Blue Comet heavyweights Lionel offered in the 2001 set had tinted windows, at least not the heavy green type.

Perhaps someone with the new set should contact Lionel and suggest a return to a more modest neutral tinting for passenger car windows.

The problem with that is that in all likelihood the car colors won't match the engine, and the result will be much worse than living with green-tinted windows.

The color of the cars is a good match for the loco, I agree.  But those windows!  Oh my gawd those windows!!!

Here is a photo I took of the Blue Comet car on the track with its lights illuminated.  I had the flash off so I did not blind out the interior lights so its a bit dark overall.  The green is a very dark tint and I dislike it - otherwise the interior looks pretty good.  T

The windows are going this weekend, to be replaced by clear plastic with some shades down in a few places!

I'm not a fan of the green windows with the lights on or off inside the car.

The window color is pretty bad but the cars aren't that great a representation,

Here are links to a couple of the real cars, one repainted in Blue Comet Markings:

http://i259.photobucket.com/al...unction/PICT1069.jpg

This is actually the old D'arrest in storage at Boonton:

http://i259.photobucket.com/al...unction/PICT1069.jpg

The only three axle truck on any of the cars was for the diner, Giacobini, this is a photo of an HO gauge kit:

http://www.bethlehemcarworks.c...it_261_Giacobini.JPG

Here are a few photos of the Southern Crescent cars lit up in the evening.

I vaguely remember riding on the Crescent from NY to NO in 1963 as a kid.  I'm pretty sure the windows on that train did have a greenish tint.  There was another train on the other platform and the windows on that train were tinted gray?  I'm guessing there was no standard as some of the other trains I've seen photo's off or road on had brownish, grayish, bluish, and greenish tints.  In some cases as you moved from car to car the windows had different cast to them.

Well, I'm not sure if they were tinted, and pretty sure they were not tinted that much. 

Regardless, the green tint is going.  Also, they DID have windowshades.  This weekend, mine will, too.

Has anyone contacted Lionel about this?  The both the latest and previous catalog shows clear windows on the passenger cars like the cars from 2001 / 2001 release.

May be they have clear inserts they can ship out to correct the issue.

I could, and they might although I doubt it.  Anyway, I will have clear windows with shades in these puppies before iw ould even get an answer form Lionel.

I am not a big fan of the dark green tint either. Atlas gas done it also and I have not bought any of those passenger cars.

I my opion it's like looking into a fish bowl.

I rode in the former Blue Comet cars towards the end of their service life in the mid 1970s and the windows were clear glass, not tinted. 

As others have posted there is no true O scale example of a good Blue Comet.  The coaches, baggage / coach and observation were 72' cars built by Bethlehem ship building and did run on AAR style 4 wheel trucks.  These cars made up the bulk of the CNJ passenger fleet for over 40 years.  The biggest challenge I have always had as a self professed rivet counter is that the windows were evenly spaced with single rivet lines between each set of windows.  Structurally all the commonly produced heavyweight coaches in O have double rivet lines every other window which is why many of those cars were upgraded later in life to have picture windows.  The center pillar between windows could be removed without major structural changes to the car.

Finally the diner was a unique animal and would be a wonderful scratch build project.  It was an 1880's wood 80' diner and the CNJ sheathed it with steel to make it look like a more modern car.  It retained it's truss rod support system as well at the moon windows above the main windows. While covered up on the outside, the moon windows were still visible from within the diner. 

As to color matching should someone like a Golden Gate Depot ever decide to make accurate cars, it is not as hard to color match as one might expect.  

Personally I would love to see this train accurately in O.  While I model the mid 50's and all the cars went back to Pullman Green, the Blue Comet coaches and observation cars wore at least 5 paint schemes over their long lives.