Does Color Impact Your Buying Decisions?

Color, yes. But what appeals to me most is the livery design: i.e. the New Haven McGinness , B&O, C&O, NYC Lightning Bolt, and ALL the paint schemes of the PRR GG1.

Great post.  Color absolutely affects what I buy.  And yeah let's start with yellow and green.  CNW and Susqehanna.  I didn't grow up near either but am obsessed with their paint schemes.  Minneapolis & St. Louis red too.  And then the blue Boston & Maine paint scheme.  I've been in love with that since I was a child when my dad brought home a Lionel B&M 6464 boxcar.  Oh yeah I forgot the New Haven!

Piper Cub yellow.  Rangoon Red. And of course Daylight Orange and Santa Fe Red.  Yep.

used to, not much anymore

I tend to buy what I see on the rails. If it has color, all the better, but I don't shop for particular colors.

I often refer to the local railroads as the red, the yellow and the green, even though the green has kind of gone orange. I've always been partial to Cascade green, and have a fair amount of it, but that's because I'm modeling it.

One of my all time favorite cars is Lionel's CN rainbow cylindrical hopper. I think I have 3 of them.

Sure. Zito Yellow with green stripes; silver with a red warbonnet; dark blue with a yellow warbonnet, nose/tail patches or pin stripes. There are a few others.

I must admit the uglier and the cheaper seems to grab me first then the colour scheme.That said love the oranges & reds and the greens then the black, heck just love locos !!!!!!!!!!1  

Being a Milwaukee Road fan orange would be my color of choice. Yellow (Union Pacific to be exact) turns me off because the Milwaukee Road painted their passenger trains that color in the 50's when they started working with the U.P. The beautiful orange, maroon and black was no more.

If not for the Milwaukee Road I believe it would be green. The two tone green of the Northern Pacific, the green of Southern "Cresent", the green/orange of the Great Northern, green/yellow of Reading and the Chicago Northwestern all would grace my layout with the Northern Pac and Southern being the top two. 

Yellow it is!!!

I like the railroads with bright Yellow in their color schemes.

Chessie, Union Pacific, Denver & Rio Grande,.

I am drawn to bright Yellow rolling stock as well.

Just purchased 3-4 Lionel Yellow ore cars DM&IR and "Lionel RR Club Ore cars.

I have 8-10 of these Yellow Santa Fe box cars.

really like the short 8" plastic box cars, I can pull

a ton of them behind any locomotive. 

I had to think about this a bit and I came to the conclusion that color does make a difference, but maybe not like everyone else.

In my case, I’m not much of a freight guy, so when I do buy the few freight cars, if the color is off or not correct, to me it is not a big deal.

However, I have found myself passing on passenger equipment that I wanted, but was not “correct” in my eye based on color.

If the SP Daylight color is off, it’s not a problem, because I really don’t care about the SP. But if the Chicago & Northwestern yellow and green is not correct (which is very often) I find myself passing.

So, color does make a difference for the roads I am most interested in. Color is much less of an issue for the roads I have only a passing interest in.

Charlie

I don't think that color effects my train purchases.  I have never thought about it in this way before.  Color effects clothing and other things but not trains that I am consciously aware of at least.

Art

For me, color also makes a difference. My favorite color is blue but it does not stop there. To me different color combinations is what catches my eyes.

The Blue Comet has always been a favorite of mine being blue in color. But one that is above the Blue Comet in my book is Lionel's B&O President Harrison 4-6-2 Pacific pulling the streamlined B&O Columbian passenger cars with it's use of blues and grays. 

Just as colorful are the SP Daylights, GN green & orange, Milwaukee Road Hiawatha and on. But I don't count black out of it either, one of my favorite steam engines is the Milwaukee Road's S-3.

I have never thought about the question. But, with the exception of all my military trains it looks like a rainbow in the train room. I guess I like all the colors even the purple ACL stuff.

Larry

Of course, color is as color does, but when Lionel began going to bright colors in the

late 50's (I was 10 in 1958 and had a hi-rail-ish - thanks to my father - layout) I 

did not like it. The products suddenly looked more toy-ish, less like what I saw in the real world and, simply, cheap. I think that it is a misconception that all children like bright

colors. My 2055 Hudson and pre-58 PW rolling stock looked real to my young eyes.

So, yes, color does influence my purchases, but as often as not, overly garish paint

schemes, even if accurate, tend to put me off. So color can "un-sell" sometimes.

I really dislike the new KCS yellow/red/black/orange/whatever scheme; looks like

a circus train (not a fan), and all my life I have been put off by he

purple/pink/violet end of the spectrum. So, no purple ACL...

But, it is strictly case by case; I like yellow, for example, but it depends on the yellow.

(No, I'm not a UP fan). Some reds are good (GM&O "brick red"; but not the MStL red),

and so on - but, case by case, again. 

Favorite non-black loco? NYC Dreyfuss "Century" Hudson. Silver and gray are quite

colorful enough most of the time for industrial equipment, thanks.

Unfortunately I am a sucker for livery color arrangements that attract me. Hence I have a lot of cars and a couple engines that never run because I thought they looked cool at the time. Color is still a factor but I lean more towards keeping my consists more "consistent". I bought 10 of the RMT PRR ore cars recently -- all black -- and put them behind a PRR S2 Bantam turbine with a PRR caboose. Interesting colors? No, but I could not stop running those cars. It just looked so neat having everything match for a change.

Thanks guys for all of your comments. I am blown away by the interest in this topic. Based upon what most of you have said, color really does have an influence on your train purchases. Makes me feel better, I am not alone.

I am surprised that Allan Miller has chimed in with Alaska blue & yellow.  

I have been working to put together a PRR all Yellow MOW train. I think I might have most of what's out there. To me yellow is a best color for a work train. All I think I need is the Weaver PRR Yellow troop car and a Yellow loco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=D5gQwtfs1r8

I hope this link works

I like the Green Southern Crescent Ltd. engines on my roster but my preference is black locomotives and red cabooses,black hoppers and tankers and red box cars.

Being color blind it does not matter when I buy a train.  If

I like It I buy it.  However, I can well understand how color can

impact a purchase, if you like red or green, or black which I can

see, it makes sense.

As Brian stated above many interesting comments regarding

how we buy trains based on the colors we like.  Good stuff here.

Many thanks,

Billy C

Great thread Passenger Train Collector, I am not surprised that color is one major factor in forum members purchasing O gauge trains.  With railroads making their engines, passenger cars and some rolling stock attractive with a wide variety of colors it makes for eye catching view by those who run the models today.  Thanks for a great thread.

Steve, Lady and Tex

Thanks Steve for your comments. From what I have read, red & yellow and blue & yellow are two of the favorite combinations. So it is understandable that trains like the Sante Fe, Texas Special, and Alaska Railroad are so popular.

Fast forward.

Stripes are nice.

I answered Red (like on CP) is one of my favorite train colors and also that classy blue on the N&W diesels.

I have been trying to like the UP yellow, but except for the one with the US flag on the side of the diesel, the plain yellow just doesn't do it for me. Now I see a caboose which was current with the big boy and it is plain as it could be...just plain yellow with a tiny Union Pacific. But it's growing on me...growing on me as I keep looking at it in the pre-orders.

Yellow, Yellow and more Yellow!!!!!

How bout good ol Red, White and Blue??

Popi, you certainly are with the "color program". Good for you!

Since your into yellow, a while back, the NTTM did some Lionel freight cars as a work train.  I have the tank car and PS-1 boxcar.  They are all yellow with the NTTM logo.  I know they also did a wheel set car...not sure what else.  They are easy to find on the bay.

This is color causing me to buy for a different reason than what was probalby on the minds of folks when this thread started.  

Recently I was at a store I seldom visit and saw a set of three Atlas PFE reefers on display that were a slightly different shade than most - not nearly as dramatic an orange and most I have.  I bought them for that reason.  

I've had 28 PFE reefers, Lionel, MTH, and Atlas, too, before these three and they all varied slightly in hue.  These look much more faded.  they are wonderful.  If you look through books such as Pacific Fruit Express, etc., you never see a line of PFE reefers that isn't nearly every care a very different hue (most of the older pictures are B&W but its still very dramatic).  So, in a way, color influenced this sale, too.

Being partial to steam engines I'm with Henry Ford - any color as long as it's black.

"Being partial to steam engines I'm with Henry Ford - any color as long as it's black."

Well the Lionel SP Cab Forward in daylight colors sure changes this. 

While I only have diesels and no steamers, I do kind of like the SP Daylight colors on the cab forward and also the Greyhound color scheme on some of the UP steamers. My LHS has one of the new UP Challengers sitting on the shelf in the Greyhound colors and it really stands out over the all black version next to it (at least I think it does anyway). 

rtr12:

"Greyhound colors and it really stands out over the all black version"

I am sure with you on this one. I have the Greyhound version on two Challengers and an 844.

Black is beautiful...

some see it as a gray area...

but as long as ya don't call me yella...

I won't get red faced about it...

or green with envy...

It's as clear as black and white...

one can never say enough about orange...

because after plunking down my hard-earned pieces of silver...

I'm not blue...

because I'm not going to have a brown-out over the color of what I buy.

Rusty

Very clever Rusty. I loved your presentation!

ABSOLUTELY GO FOR COLOR. i HAVE ABOUT 40 BILLBOARD REFERS AND NOTHING THERE RESEMBLES A TUSCAN / RED BOXCAR.

In tinplate, absolutely color is king. In modern stuff I would say that prototype color schemes of road equipment as a more specific choice of color (s) led me to Rock Island ( black, white and red) and Seaboard's citrus scheme. Although the NKP blue and white passenger scheme strikes me as sharp as in Doyle's PA. Primary colors are more of a matter of mixing to my eye, the more variations the better in rolling stock as far as consists go. One color ( whatever color) does not suit my tastes.

To answer the original question.  YES.

 I buy what looks good, to me.  I don't care if it's prototypical or a so called fantasy paint scheme.  These are my toys, and I tend to be drawn towards what looks good visually, rather than how accurate an item is. 

It is all very subjective.

One example.  I am not a fan of Cab Forward design.  It just always seemed a bit off to me.  However, I just saw the new Daylight painted example that Mike Regan showed on another thread.  That I like!

Anyhow, yes, color (and looks) are what guide me to buy and train item, locos or rolling stock.

sure does PRR Brunswick green and Tuscan red . B&O blue and gray and finally Milwaukee orange maroon and gray. enough said.....

I will have to agree.  Steam engine black, boxcar red - which really kooks brown to me, oxide red is okay, dark greens or blues.  That goes for passenger cars and engines too.  I am a pretty drab, I'll admit.  The only exception is caboose red.  I do not like red, but caboose red is a tradition.  I guess I like the old steam era.