Ed Boyle's Run 301 review of Lionel's Green ALCO Passenger sets - color difference explained

Hi Radio-Ron,  I am like you,  I think Ed's articles are must reads in every issue.  That is such a great catch on using the "Luxury Lines" version of the Maplewood car!  Maybe Ed is pulling a fast on on us, since in the article he referred to it as "their contemporary counterparts..."  so this is a true mystery.  

I did get the new Alco set and my only disapointment is that there have been no addon cars offered (like Lionel did with the Conventional Classics UP Anniversary set a while back. The new Alco PA engin can pull a ton, so the extra cars would look great. 

One minor correction regarding the article, the 11712 Great Lakes Express was produced in 1990, not 1996. In 1990 the 11712 was uncataloged, offered as the Service Station Special. 

RadioRon posted:

Ed, I enjoyed your review of the new Lionel Green Postwar ALCO passenger set, plus the comparison with the 1996 version by LTI.  While there may be a difference in the shade of green between the two sets, the two No. 2400 Maplewood coaches shown in Photo No. 16 on page 65 likely differ because you show the new Maplewood car alongside a William's "Luxury Lines" copycat version of the Maplewood car.  I don't know if you or Rich caught that during the handling of the photos for the piece.  Either way... nice sets... & a nice review.  I would love the new set, but it, like just about everything else new in O gauge these days, has crept out of my budget.

I purchased the recently released Green Postwar Alco set and also owned, at the time, the 1990 Service Station set. If the colors aren't exact matches they are, at least with my set, pretty darn close. Close enough to debate keeping it instead of selling it, so that I would have a longer set.

In the end, I sold the SSS to help fund the new purchase. 

My favorite purchase of 2018. Actually it may have been late last year. 

Despite some of the usual nit-picking, I am totally satisfied with the Green ALCO Set. As a PW guy it fit the bill. Wish Lionel would do some more PW-inspired sets!

Ed didn't mention the original green Alco styled A-A units painted almost the same style as the new Lionel set. There was a company that advertised in the "other" magazine. They would professionally repaint your 027 1950's Alcos into the green version to match your green cars. The design was almost an exact version as Lionel's. All you did was mail your engines and they stripped and repainted them. I think they did a very good business of it for some time. As I recall they were even on the cover of the magazine. Wonder if any forum members had those engines. Don

scale rail posted:

Ed didn't mention the original green Alco styled A-A units painted almost the same style as the new Lionel set. There was a company that advertised in the "other" magazine. They would professionally repaint your 027 1950's Alcos into the green version to match your green cars. The design was almost an exact version as Lionel's. All you did was mail your engines and they stripped and repainted them. I think they did a very good business of it for some time. As I recall they were even on the cover of the magazine. Wonder if any forum members had those engines. Don

I believe Len Carparelli is still in business. 

Ah, Len Carparelli, MASTER PAINTER of postwar trains! He also did a lot of jobs for Madison Hardware. ☺

For an interesting discussion of the original Carparelli conversion of a pair of PW Alcos to the green version, see an article in CTT from a number of years ago. 

Attached image from the CTT issue mentioned above.