Lionel and PRR colors

I have seen pics on the auction sites... colors are really bright.  i have not opened my gla hoppers from this run this year.

I have all the other previous GLa hopper runs...  actually duplicates of them.  So I dont know if i should sell all the older ones because the new ones will be different?

I dont know really what to do.  I want ultimately a 60-car coal train with hoppers of different numbers.

Orange you say, are you sure they are not Halloween cars. 

I managed a pic at the counter at nick smith...

The old GLa hoppers are on left, the new ones on right.  The guys at the store found PRR books showing color pics of cars similar to these new ones.

What i saw at nick smith in this pic is not the bright red i saw on auction site.  So i dont know how many colors they actually used...

Looks too orange to me based on pics I’ve seen of actual cars

I also had this pic...

Not really the orange or bright red i saw on the auction sites.

I know there were a few different colors used on the round roof box cars.  I wonder if they changed these too.  Some day i will open my 3 cases of glas and see if they are different or like this...

Maybe one our resident PRR experts could chime in— but I’ve never seen a pic of a prr car that color

Well, here's one for comaparison;

(taken at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania by David P.)

It’s way off then 

I like the lighter color myself but have at least one unrun 3 pack of the darker ones if anyone wanted to swap. I plan to buy a 3 pack of the 'Coal goes to War' versions anyways.

Somewhere, rusting away, is a line of old Pennsy hoppers.  Look under the kudzu, and l bet they are in different shades of red, depending on the paint shop and weathering.

Yea.  Restored is restored.  I need to see the real colors back in the day.  The museum car and that lighting is not a good reference.

Super O Bob posted:

Yea.  Restored is restored.  I need to see the real colors back in the day.  The museum car and that lighting is not a good reference.

What i mean is its great to see a restored car, but thats not the paint that was on the prr cars back in the day, so cant really say thats the color.

I bought the recent run of PRR round roof box cars. They were indeed orange. The first run was brown, and I wasn't going to keep a second run that was also painted in the wrong color, so I returned mine to the dealer. I contacted Lionel about it, and was told they only received two complaints about it. Sorry, the color is just flat out wrong.

Pennsy Freight car color was lighter in the early 1900s and gradually got darker over the years.    Now how much lighter is up for discussion (or argument).    I think the old Polyscale "special Oxide Red" was a nice color for the older cars.    It is not nearly so orange as these new PRR cars.

I ordered them with plan to build a large coal train using them with the ones from the first 2 runs.   I have 12 I think from the first runs and I ordered all 2 circle keystone sets from this run.   I was very disappointed - I think they look like Focal Orange not a shade for Freight car Red.    I liked the colors of the first two runs.

By the way, the shadow keystone paint schemes would never be this light.   

I also found the round roof boxcars in the first run acceptable even though many people thought they were too dark brown. 

An aside, Pennsy never painted any freight equipment tuscan red (maroon).   That was reserved solely for passenger equipment.   

As for color photos of cars that light, the original cars were built before or around WW I (1914-1918).   I don't think there was any color film available at that time so we can never see photos of actual as -built cars.

And photos are good for that one car, not for the class.   Once the stuff goes into service, the weather, dirt, service location, sun and time since last shopping  affect the color of each car.    And older paints prior to synthetic pigments tended to fade and change color quicker than more modern paint.

So as a pennsy buff I think the color is too orange based on my likes and my readings.    On the other hand a good friend who also a pennsy buff and quite knowledgable thinks they are OK for early paint schemes.  

Jim...  thanks for your PRR expertese...  agree on weathering and early paints...

Keep the older GLa Hopper cars.  They have the hidden coupler tabs.  The new cars may have the new button couplers.

"And older paints prior to synthetic pigments tended to fade and change color quicker than more modern paint."

I think you may have that backwards. 

Organic pigments are the most stable.  That's what was used in most lead based paint, and that is what a lot of PRR equipment was painted with before it was banned.

Synthetic pigments were more prone to fading.  The most famous fiasco relating to railroads was the CNW and what came to known as "Zito yellow".  The loco's and freight cars were painted with a synthetic yellow versus previously used organic yellow.  Zito yellow was the result of extreme paint fade due to using synthetic pigments.

Super O Bob posted:

Super O Bob posted:

Yea.  Restored is restored.  I need to see the real colors back in the day.  The museum car and that lighting is not a good reference.

What i mean is its great to see a restored car, but thats not the paint that was on the prr cars back in the day, so cant really say thats the color.

Curious about this. I was talking to a worker at the PA RR museum and he was saying that they do essential like forensic analysis of the paints for accuracy   Maybe not on for everything  but still, I feel like like if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for me.  That being said it is difficult to figure out exact colors from photos  old or new since there are so many factors effecting what finally gets in your eye. 

Jeff...  like the other guy said, those paints are banned and not available, so the museum restoration is someones impression of what the color was, not actually the color.

You can look at the color it appears years later, but cant know what it looked like before fading, grime, etc...

Penn-Pacific posted:

Well, here's one for comaparison;

(taken at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania by David P.)

This looks close to this...

Or color photos

Or lionel round roofs in case at NST...

 this is the crazy color that i saw on auction site!  Is this from lighting?  Or are they really this RED?  I guess i will have to open mine up to see, unless some PRR experts on ogr have seen these...  thanks for all your feedback and help on this.