Scale Daylight Models - A Photo Sharing Thread and Discussion on Accuracy

Always good to see someone doing western railroads.  Hope you enjoy it.

Here's mine, an original-release 20-3029-1 Premier GS-4 from 1998, upgraded to PS 2.0 and a few custom detailing tweaks done to it, pulling a set of Daylight passenger cars from GGD.

Love my GS-2... just glides over the rails, and the sound system.. WoW! And this is the older TMCC version

Nick, please note the K-Line SP cars are the wrong colors and will not match your GS loco- K-Line appeared to have used colors closer to the Milw Rd than the SP. SP's colors are very vibrant so you should look for the 3rd Rail cars instead-- just my opinion

Here's mine.  I have the Lionel #6-11127 SP GS-4 Legacy Daylight.  It was originally in the 2008 Volume 1 Lionel catalog.  I pre-ordered it.  It took almost a year to arrive!  I have the matching #6-25506 heavy weight cars to go with it.  Matt

Nick,

beautiful engine and good luck with it. Listen to Jeff about the K-line passenger cars. 

I have indeed noticed K-Line went a few shades too deep on their cars. As leavingtracks observed, looked as if they'd been left out in the sun too long. And while I'd love to own the 3rd Rail cars, they are unfortunately outside my price range.

I suppose that really only leaves the set Lionel produced to match, and I really can't stand those defective windows. I was waiting to see if they can be made flush with the car body before committing to a set.

Concerning the K-Line 21" SP Daylight streamline passenger cars, I believe that they, K-Line, offered them in different production runs. The "first offering" had nicer looking, i.e. more "correct" colors. The next, or later, offering were just terrible, and those poor customers that were trying to assemble a nice long train of SP Daylight cars wound up being really screwed! 

Luckily I already knew that Scott Mann, of Golden Gate Depot, was eventually going to produce the correct, fluted side, post WWII Daylight cars with even the correct articulated chair cars and articulated 3 section diner. It was DEFINITELY worth the wait! 

We've talked about this Daylight color issue often here on the forum.  Seems the true Daylight by Lionel is the best match (with bright red and bright orange), and probably MTH is a close second.  Can't comment on GGD/3rd Rail 'cause their availability just never quite aligns with when I'm looking for something... and they don't "always" offer complete sets.  Sometimes they do... Other times they don't.

K-Line's Daylight colors are closer to Lionel's Shasta Daylight, which has a slightly deeper red and the orange almost becomes gold.  It's not the worst thing in life...  just not a perfect match to the Lionel steam locomotives.  Everyone has different tolerances... what someone views as an intolerable color match, others may think, "What's there to notice? Looks fine to me."  Just human nature.  

David

I have the matching Lionel passenger set.  Bought them in 2009.  Maybe that batch had good windows because they look just fine on my set.

If you are referring to the "Daylight painted" passenger cars in your photos posted above, those are heavyweight (Madison) cars, and naturally did/do NOT have the protruding window glass as on the Lionel Daylight STREAMLINE passenger cars.

By the way, for what it's worth, the SP Daylight passenger trains were ALL streamline equipment, and NOT heavyweight cars.  

I can't say I have ever seen one but there were apparently a few heavyweight head cars and diners painted Daylight colors, both Harriman and clerestory roof types. Certainly not whole trains though.

Well...Hot Water...no wonder they didn't have the defective windows.  RockyMountaineer...don't worry...not going there.  I guess the Daylight will run with heavyweights on the B&B RR...and that's OK with me.  Matt

And in the end, that's all that matters.  Color differences notwithstanding, both Lionel and K-Line have made some nice Daylight heavyweights.

David

Maybe I'm not in the scale club.....but I attend meetings!! The Daylight GS was always on my list of locos I wanted. I have two in HO and when I switched to O I looked for one.

I finally found a K-Line unit which I always thought was scale but was later told it's not.....but it's so close and looks great so I'm happy......

The K-Line GS running gear is actually from their N&W J model, and bears absolutely NO resemblance to an SP GS-4.

Have seen a few Lionel heavyweight coaches with the outlined "Southern Pacific Lines" mixed into the earlier ribbed side streamlined cars, they look outstanding. Better windows too

Dave,

If you are happy that is all that matters, enjoy the hobby!!

Yeah  cool engine

If you're looking for the matching Lionel 18" streamlined car set, I wouldn't worry about the windows. I'd worry about finding the set at all. They're very scarce, especially the 4-car set.

Speaking of colors, the only cars that really match the Lionel engines are Lionel ones, other than the Shasta cars, which don't match as previously mentioned. The SP used different colors on the Shasta Daylights than on the Coastal Daylights. From what I have seen, the 3rd Rail cars are also a duller shade than the Lionel engine, leaning towards Shasta colors.

The Lionel MPC era 15" cars are a color match for the Lionel scale engines, but are obviously shorter, and don't have interiors, but I've seen folks running them behind the scale engines. Also, the old Williams cars, which were made with the Williams brass GS-4 something like 20 years ago, are also a good match for the Lionel. Again, 15" cars with no interiors, however.

And that affects my happiness HOW????

These trains run on track with 3 rails,  it's so tall you'd need a ladder to climb over it, go around curves that would derail a B&O Docksider in real life, wheels flanges bigger than the wheel itself.......yada yada yada....

You fail to bring me down.......ignorant and happy about it!

Please remember that the title of this whole thread is:

"Joined the Scale Daylight Club - Let's See Yours!"

I believe the key word is "Scale" !

I wasn't trying to bring you down anyway. Guess you may be a bit sensitive?

Nope.....I noted that I thought it was scale when I paid the $180 for it. And even with the MANY folks here that have told me how AWFUL this abomination is....I am still a happy camper!  It does amaze me what is OK and what is taboo in the 3 rail O hobby. I left HO for many reasons, one being nit pickers. I enjoy trains that are unauthentic.....just like everyone else here that enjoy 3 rail O hobby.

Agreed....my K-Line GS pulling 6 Williams 18" Daylight cars looks good.....and thus I am happy!!! Yes....I know NONE of my items are 100% scale. The Williams cars are generic and not the fantastic GGD prototypical cars.  But I have maybe less than the cost of two GGD cars in my entire train. I have to make a choice fun or perfect. I go with the fun....those that have the funds for perfect are happy too in a different way. That's why this hobby is great. 

I wouldn't knock these engines. They look great... the only give away that they are not scale are the pilot wheels and drivers, otherwise they look and sound very nice.

Regarding the K-Line GS-4, that one is certainly the top dog of the semi-scale renditions with the most detail. But for me there really is no going back. After getting a taste for the full scale, everything else just seems so small and/or crude looking. The deficiencies of the K-Line model like the running gear Hot Water mentioned really do stick out like a sore thumb once you know how these things are really supposed to look.

"These trains run on track with 3 rails,  it's so tall you'd need a ladder to climb over it, go around curves that would derail a B&O Docksider in real life, wheels flanges bigger than the wheel itself.......yada yada yada...."

I personally never cared for this line of reasoning being used as a counterpoint to people who prefer more accurate products. Everything mentioned above is simply the compromises we make for ease of operation, and has absolutely no bearing on the two different disciplines of happy-go-lucky "if it looks good buy it" vs. more discerning scale modeling. Those are simple matters of preference and neither approach is right or wrong.

I think Lionel TMCC engines are awesome, I have the new SP Legacy Daylight and it is awesome too. I purchased the Lionel Shasta Daylight cars to go with my Daylight and the color match is very very close. (I know no like's the windows) I'm just showing the color match.

Alex

Alex, what does the Daylight logo look like on the fireman's side?  Is the wing going left or right?  I.E. is it the same decal that is used on the engineer's side or is it a different, correct one?  Thank you!

Ah yes, I had forgotten all about Lionel's little goof on one of those logos. I think you can see it in my original photo.

You can definitely see the error in the photos posted by boin106, way up at the top of this thread (photo #6 and #7). The Fireman's side "Daylight Ball & Wing" is incorrect.

100% correct!! I came from a scale background of 35 years in HO. I was tired of counting rows of rivets on the underside of a tender......and can't see them any longer anyways! But the 'that's wrong' attitude is funny to me. It's ALL wrong.....even the best scale model is WRONG in some area. It your tolerance level. After years of no tolerance for anything out of scale I am having more fun here.....it took me a long time to figure that out. To each his own!!!

Hi John, 

Here's two photo's of both sides

Alex

Okay so wait I'm confused. Which one is wrong again? The TMCC or the Legacy version?

Nick so am I LOL, I think it's mine which is the Legacy version. 

Alex

Oops. Looks like the new Legacy GS-2 also has the Daylight "Ball and Wing" logo, on the Fireman's side, incorrect, just like the Legacy GS-4 model from a few years ago?

Just looked up some photos of 4449. It would appear Lionel got both logos right on the TMCC GS-2 from 2004, but the fireman's side logo backwards on the Legacy GS-4 and GS-2 from 2008 and 2012, respectively. Odd that they would get something like that right the first time then wrong the next two. Would be interesting to know how the error occurred.

(Right-click the following images and open them in new tabs / windows to see them larger).

Nick the picture of yours and the MTH version that JohnKorling posted are correct.

Lionel is notorious for that. Look at the the postwar 2343c Santa Fe B units, Chico is always going the wrong way on one side. They use the same mask/decal for both sides.

Alex, thanks for the info!  I was wondering if they would get it wrong again.  I have the older GS-2 with the correct logo.