Lightweight Passenger Cars-Polished or Paint?

i prefer painted as most of the Pennsy Milwaukee and B&O cars are painted. i guess its all about what you remember that makes you want to duplicate in modeling what you saw in real life.

Polished, especially under a lit Christmas Tree.

I believe it is just another example in our train hobby of personal preference.  How a passenger consist look to a member will vary according to what appeals to them.  I know members who have polished and painted, prototypical and not. 

 

There are some beautiful passenger cars in O gauge and Passenger Car Collector has the professional eye for them.  Your collection is incredible to say the least.

 

Steve, Lady and Tex

I love both, but the polished always draws the most attention from visitors to my layout. 

 

Art

I buy 'em for my favorite railroads, not giving a thought to painted or polished.  I sure do like the extruded metal cars though.

"I love both, but the polished always draws the most attention from visitors to my layout."

 

OK Art, it is alright to admit here that you also love those polished metal cars. Proof positive, the CZ and El Capitan that frequent your main lines. You are among friends here.   

 

I can not take a side on this issue, I like 'em BOTH.

If really pressed to choose, that K-Line polished finish is hard to beat.

 

The look is what does it for me, not road name, not painted vs polished, just do they look good....come to think of it that is how I used to pick girlfriends too.

 

Love Passenger cars. Growing up in the MidWest, coming there from Maine. I must say, all we travelled in and what went past our Farm, except for Milwaukee and UP, the only color painted cars I saw were Heavyweights Greens, on NYC, and CE&I. Also what I rode to Basic Training and afterwards, Green Heavyweights into 1967.

If everyone on this post sends me one of each I tell you what I think. LOL  

I have one set of polish. But you only need one set. 

The rest are colors that pop. The SP daylight, Milwaukee Black, Burgundy and orange, Golden state Red and Silver... and if I can ever afford it the Northern Pacific North Coast Limited. Put these on a layout with a big blue sky backdrop and WOW....

 

 

Brian, if it's a passenger car or train, I love all the colors!

 

As a kid while running the Christmas layout in our basement, my favorite thing to do was to turn the lights out and see only the lights from the cars and my #60 trolley glowing on the walls. 

Paint. As beautiful as the polished cars are, if you don't wear gloves it's fingerprint city.

 

Gilly

I like both painted and polished but my very favorite passenger train is the GN Empire Builder.

Now Brian....why in the heck would you want to ask a hard question like that!!!....OK....I like them ALL!!!!

 

Alan

From the replies so far, it appears that most but their Lightweight passengers cars based upon the look that most appeals to them. As discussed in another thread, apparently colors do matter in this equation.

 

Thanks to all for your posts. Alan especially covered a lot of territory.

It's just a crying shame that you couldn't find any passenger cars to put on your layout!

WOW, datsabuncha cars!!!

 

Gilly

 

J Daddy - I guess you left out one of the most "eye popping" passenger trains out by mistake, so I will add the beautiful red and silver Texas Special to your list.

 

 

 

Steve, Lady and Tex

As my Forum name implies, The Milwaukee Road in Orange, Black and Maroon. I am waiting for the F-3 ABA set to get here that I ordered of the Lackawanna RR. I have 7 passenger cars and an express boxcar in the Gray, Maroon and Yellow colors and they look great to me. Another consist I would really love to have is the Northern Pacific "North Coast Limited" as TexSpecial has already posted a photo of. I could learn to love the "Texas Special" with its shiny cars. I have the Milwaukee Road because that is my favorite railroad. I bought the Lackawanna because of its great looks. Any others I would get would be for their color scheme.

You know Steve, you have both the polished and the paint covered in the TS. I should have thought of that as I have 2 TS sets.

 

Good for you. 

Love 'em both!

I have one set of polished that is enough for me right now.  The rest are painted.

Hello Brian,

I prefer painted cars and purchase a certain Armour Yellow type 

 

Hope everyone enjoys York!

When I reentered the world of trains in 2004, I picked four colors I wanted to run: red, green, silver, and blue.  For green I picked BN with the accenting white to complement the  green.  This proved an unsatisfactory RR for a passenger train, so I added NP to the roster.   There were no 21" NP cars available at the time, so Jeff Sohn created this masterpiece for me.

Single dumbest thing I ever said about trains: "Why would anybody want to run NYC with those drab grey colors?"  This in spite of the fact that I grew up north of Albany, NY and rode the train as a child to NYC where we went to Macys.  The next time I rode a regularly scheduled train was on Amtrak in 2011 from Seattle to D.C. on the way to York.  The train roster is now expanded to 35 RRs with four versions of the NYC.  I have more than enough colors now, but Train Collector has taken me over to the dark side with his convincing urging for GM's ToT and the new SF F-7 Yellow Bonnets. 

Bill, your custom Northern Pacific passenger train set is beautiful. Jeff sure did a nice job with them. 

 

And remember, the more passenger train sets, the better. There is no turning back for you now. 

Bill - You have an absolutely beautiful train there, but you need to have the engines checked them seem to be blowing an awful lot of smoke. 

 

Well at least it's outside.  Really looks great!

 

Art

Long ago I discovered "Woodshire Bill"....downloaded every one of his videos and watched them over and over and over and over........

 

Bill...your outside layout is amazing!!  Hey...the NP cars are beautiful too!

 

Alan

Good choice, a sharp train she is.  That is the paint scheme that got me back in the hobby.  Saw it in the magazine and went looking for a set.  Though I ended up getting a different road name, I still owe my rekindled love of trains to that beautiful paint scheme.

Keith - I'm with you on the beauty of the old Empire Builder.  The first train that I really fell in love with in HO was the GN Empire Builder.  It was a huge HO layout at the Clay County Fair in Spencer, IA.  They had very long straights, I would guess over a 100 feet long and wide radius curves and it was able to really stretch it legs.

 

Art

For me it is the railroad that counts so I have WP CZ polished,SP Daylite,UP Armour Yellow,DRGW Silver Yellow,Orient Express Blue Cream and numerous Heavyweights.

Mikey

Bill, are your 21" cars K-Line?