Lionel GS-5 Vision Daylight Steam Engine #4459

Todd,

   Beautiful engine, best of luck with it. All the smoke effects are great.

JohnB

Looks very nice, congratulations....

The only thing they left off that I liked on my Legacy #4436, is the chrome lateral metal strips on the front of the pilot, but looking in all the books I have on the Daylight engines through their history says this is correct in the later years.  I guess they really did their homework this time at Lionel concerning the GS series.

Nice.

The #4458 GS-5 has the chrome strips.  I got #4459 because it don't have them.  Been running it every day sure is a cool engine.

I wonder why the model has "X4459" in the Train Number Indicators"? Standard practice on the Southern Pacific Railroad was to have the Train Number showing in the Indicators, even if a freight train. The SP continued that practice well into the diesel era.

Yeah.... I can live with the X, and the silver gray boiler front ( which isn’t really for real) although I certainly yield to your expertise from the actual cab hot seat  Hotwater  😀. (Nobody here is closer to reality than you.)  For the scale model in my humble cold garage loft layout here in CT..... I just love it.

Right up until I powered it up I wasn’t so sure about it. I loved my older Legacy 4436, but within 2 minutes of electricity running through this model I was sold.

More importantly, my train crazy 9 year old son was wild for it.

@oceandreams89 posted:

Right up until I powered it up I wasn’t so sure about it. I loved my older Legacy 4436, but within 2 minutes of electricity running through this model I was sold.

Well, as nice as that 4436 model was (I had one), the Daylight "Ball & wing" logo was backwards on one side of the skirts. I had to have my custom painter/detailer/weatherer fit that with correct Champ Decals.

Jack, this guy and his son loves this engine. Let them enjoy it and quit trying to poke holes in it.

Pete

FWIW, I'm on the fence about picking up a 4449....and I welcome what Jack has to say on it.

I'm curious about the colors. As of late. Oranges, reds, and yellows from Lionel, have been especially bright, almost neon.

My GS engines arrived from Trainworld today. I bought the 4459, 4439 Daylight w/o skirts, and GS-1 4470. I have to say the GS-5 is my favorite of the group. Lionel got the details pretty close to prototypical for SP. The Daylight colors are probably the closest Lionel has ever come to getting them right.
These engines are truly spectacular to see and operate. If anyone is on the fence, I highly recommend getting one.

@Ryan Selvius posted:

"The Daylight colors are probably the closest Lionel has ever come to getting them right."

With the Daylights having run over 70 years ago what prevented Lionel from having accurate colors before this?

Seems the GS-2 and aluminum cars from 20 years ago look the best judging by some comments here.

"With the Daylights having run over 70 years ago what prevented Lionel from having accurate colors before this?"

Accuracy turns out to be in the eye of the beholder. The railroads were less obsessive about colors than modelers are, for one thing.  Weathering and aging of paint both in the can and on the engine add to additional variation.  So does the variation in color photography, which is what is being relied upon in almost all cases.  Modelers have ideas about colors that don't jibe with the realities of chemistry and nature .

@Landsteiner posted:

Accuracy turns out to be in the eye of the beholder. The railroads were less obsessive about colors than modelers are, for one thing.  Weathering and aging of paint both in the can and on the engine add to additional variation.  So does the variation in color photography, which is what is being relied upon in almost all cases.  Modelers have ideas about colors that don't jibe with the realities of chemistry and nature .

No.  Accuracy is matching the expensive model to the prototype....not simply tolerating what some 16 year old in a Chinese factory came up with.

There are lots of excellent, COLOR photographs from WWII on that are available for reference....if one cares to look.

There is also poor QC such that three different runs of a locomotive can have three different shades of paint....none of which match the passenger cars created specifically for that locomotive.  (611).

@Berkshire President posted:

FWIW, I'm on the fence about picking up a 4449....and I welcome what Jack has to say on it.

Not actually having seen ANY of the new Lionel models, I am not in a position to comment on which 4449 Lionel produced (excursion or in-service versions). Concerning the colors, without comparing the model to the color chips in Robert J. Church's book on the "Southern Pacific Daylight Locomotives", no real comments pertaining to the models red, orange and black colors is appropriate. The photos of some of the Lionel GS models posted on OGR forums, are all over the map when it comes to lighting and color representation.

"There are lots of excellent, COLOR photographs from WWII on that are available for reference....if one cares to look."

If one cares to look, there are so many variations of lighting, color film variations in sensitivity and paint variables as to make this a thankless task, not to mention scientifically challenging.  Not matching paint to accompanying passenger cars is one thing. Trying to determine the true color from color photographs taken half a century ago and then reproduced is an impossibly unreliable undertaking.  Them's the facts .

@Landsteiner posted:

"There are lots of excellent, COLOR photographs from WWII on that are available for reference....if one cares to look."

If one cares to look, there are so many variations of lighting, color film variations in sensitivity and paint variables as to make this a thankless task, not to mention scientifically challenging.  Not matching paint to accompanying passenger cars is one thing. Trying to determine the true color from color photographs taken half a century ago and then reproduced is an impossibly unreliable undertaking.  Them's the facts .

O.K., well then someone needs to take their model to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, whenever it reopens.

In the meantime a comparison of different brands as well as passengers cars might at least further the discussion.

@Landsteiner posted:

"There are lots of excellent, COLOR photographs from WWII on that are available for reference....if one cares to look."

If one cares to look, there are so many variations of lighting, color film variations in sensitivity and paint variables as to make this a thankless task, not to mention scientifically challenging.  Not matching paint to accompanying passenger cars is one thing. Trying to determine the true color from color photographs taken half a century ago and then reproduced is an impossibly unreliable undertaking.  Them's the facts .

It's so impossible that MTH and Third Rail do so consistently and repeatedly.  Just saying...........

Everything you mentioned is technically correct....but only one large manufacturer seems to be having this issue over the last five years or so.   Just my two cents.

That said, I like this version of the 4449.

@RickO posted:

O.K., well then someone needs to take their model to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, whenever it reopens.

In the meantime a comparison of different brands as well as passengers cars might at least further the discussion.

Good point. Ever since 4449 was repainted back to "Daylight colors", i.e. red, orange & black, back in 1981 for the grand opening of the California State Railroad Museum, many, MANY people have brought they various model SP Daylight steam locomotives to visit and compare theirs to ours.

As a side note, while we were preparing 4449 in the SP Sacramento Shop complex, prior to going into the museum (we arrived about 5 days early for cleaning & prep), an elderly gentleman showed up driving an official SP electric cart. He was well dressed (suit & tie) and identified himself as being from the Sacramento Shops Laboratory, and asked if we would mind him "checking out" our steam locomotive. I thus gave him the $50 tour! He then went to the back box on the rear of his cart, and produced four large envelopes, each of which contained an 8"X10" "master color panel", which were protected inside double black envelops. One at a time, he compared each color panel to the appropriate color on 4449; 1) red, 2) orange, 3) lettering gray, and 4) black. He was VERY impressed that our colors, even though done in modern day Dupont Imron paint, custom mixed by Dupont Paint Co., matched his master color panels! He thanked all of us and gone on his electric cart, and disappeared back into the inside of the shop complex.

Since MTH issued their model of SP 4449, I have personally witnessed many, MANY people bring the O-Gauge 4449 models to the real 4449, to compare their models to the real thing, and the MTH colors always look dead-on to me.

Great story, Jack.  Thanks for sharing....yet again!

@Hot Water posted:

Not actually having seen ANY of the new Lionel models, I am not in a position to comment on which 4449 Lionel produced (excursion or in-service versions). Concerning the colors, without comparing the model to the color chips in Robert J. Church's book on the "Southern Pacific Daylight Locomotives", no real comments pertaining to the models red, orange and black colors is appropriate. The photos of some of the Lionel GS models posted on OGR forums, are all over the map when it comes to lighting and color representation.

I forgot the Daylight color swatches were in the Robert Church book. I’ll have to do a comparison when I get home tonight.

I’ve compared the Lionel 2004 model to the swatches in the SPH&TS SP painting and lettering guide and they are off. The Daylight Atlantic from a couple years earlier is also off. Don’t know about the 2008 GS-4 since I don’t own one of those. I can’t speak for MTH or 3rd Rail models either.

Based on the 100s (maybe 1000s) of color photos I have seen of vintage and contemporary SP Daylight painted equipment, my gut instinct was that this is the best Lionel has done. A comparison to official color swatches will be interesting.

@Ryan Selvius posted:

Based on the 100s (maybe 1000s) of color photos I have seen of vintage and contemporary SP Daylight painted equipment, my gut instinct was that this is the best Lionel has done. A comparison to official color swatches will be interesting.

That's kind of where I'm at right now as well.......FWIW.

@Hot Water posted:

I wonder why the model has "X4459" in the Train Number Indicators"? Standard practice on the Southern Pacific Railroad was to have the Train Number showing in the Indicators, even if a freight train. The SP continued that practice well into the diesel era.

Builders photos.

The argument could be made that the builders photos for both also show SPL instead of SP on the tender, but we wanted both variations available in the GS-5 line.

@Berkshire President posted:

It's so impossible that MTH and Third Rail do so consistently and repeatedly.  Just saying...........

Everything you mentioned is technically correct....but only one large manufacturer seems to be having this issue over the last five years or so.   Just my two cents.

That said, I like this version of the 4449.

Just looking at the photos of the model and the prototype, this locomotive looks pretty close to the correct colors to me.

For some reason, the colors on the Lionel passenger diesels (E6, E7, E8) for the last few years have been way off.  Just not even close to correct, in many cases.

The GS5's look great, but I am puzzled as to why the 4459 despite being in it's post 1946 "in service" lettering, train indicator board position, and solid orange pilot has white walls - shouldn't those be black?

@ES44AC posted:

The GS5's look great, but I am puzzled as to why the 4459 despite being in it's post 1946 "in service" lettering, train indicator board position, and solid orange pilot has white walls - shouldn't those be black?

That’s the one item I’d like to change. I spent quite some time deciding which Daylight model to order. I wanted either a 4 or 5 and I wanted postwar lettering. I chose the GS-5 for 2 reasons: 1 its never been done and 2 it had whistle steam. I figured the white walls won’t be too hard to remove at a later date.

I paint all my driver tires, including painting over the white on my MTH GS4. Little bit of acrylic paint and a small brush go a long way.

Re: the comments above about the accuracy of the Daylight colors, several folks had indicated in other threads that they were going to post comparison photos of the latest Legacy Daylights with the earlier ones, including No. 11127, the first Legacy GS4, which is the one I have. I was interested, too, in how the latest colors match the 18" aluminum cars issued previously. If the new engines don't match those (they do match the 11127 perfectly), I doubt I'd be interested (not to mention the potential future gearbox issue with the new models).

However, so far I haven't seen anyone post any comparison photos. Like many, I have seen countless photos of the real 4449, as well as visiting it in Portland. To me, the colors, especially in outdoor light, appear bright and lusterous. I've thought the colors of the 11127 were a very good match, and I'm eager to see someone post comparison photos of the new models and the older ones.

I was against buying one with the white outline on the wheels at first. I really wanted them to be black myself, but all the other details we so much of an improvement that I decided to let the white walls go. I had the same thought, I could always take care of the white outline myself if I wanted. I also would have liked to see the chrome lateral metal strips on the pilot as it looks a little bland without them, but again, all the other details make that easy to overlook.

@ES44AC posted:

The GS5's look great, but I am puzzled as to why the 4459 despite being in it's post 1946 "in service" lettering, train indicator board position, and solid orange pilot has white walls - shouldn't those be black?

My recollection, from an extended discussion in a post when the last Legacy Daylights came out, is that some GS4s had whitewalls, but the later GS5 and GS6 models never did (I think that's what was said). In at least some cases, those engines that had whitewalls had them changed to black sometime during their service life. As always, though, my recollection may be at least somewhat incorrect. As probably most know, the surviving 4449 GS4 has been run both with and without whitewalls, although in more recent years - I think - it has been operated just with blackwalls, at least that I've seen.

@Ryan Selvius posted:

.....I figured the white walls won’t be too hard to remove at a later date.

I've left my 11127 with its whitewalls. I think it looks sharp (just personal preference), but also, once you paint over them with black, it's kind of forever, because it would be a lot harder to repaint to white if you decided to, and make a clean job of it. At least it would be for me. 

@oceandreams89 posted:

I was against buying one with the white outline on the wheels at first. I really wanted them to be black myself, but all the other details we so much of an improvement that I decided to let the white walls go. I had the same thought, I could always take care of the white outline myself if I wanted. I also would have liked to see the chrome lateral metal strips on the pilot as it looks a little bland without them, but again, all the other details make that easy to overlook.

My plan is to buy a pilot for one of the models that has the straps when spare parts get posted online. I already bought a pilot for the 4439 to swap out. The pilot is pretty easy to swap out. This way I can model the 1946 to 1950-51ish time period. Not sure what exact year 4459 lost her pilot straps but SP started removing them in the early 50s. Apparently auto collisions were frequent with the GS engines and the shops got sick of straightening the trim out every time a GS hit something.

Ad for white walls, locomotives really only had them when they left the builder. After a couple weeks of service they were gone and railroads didn’t repaint them. They look sharp but if you want to model SP operations they were only present when the locomotives were newly delivered.

@breezinup posted:

I've left my 11127 with its whitewalls. I think it looks sharp (just personal preference), but also, once you paint over them with black, it's kind of forever, because it would be a lot harder to repaint to white if you decided to, and make a clean job of it. At least it would be for me. 

Not necessarily. Acrylic comes off with a little bit of alcohol (or even water, but it requires a little bit more scrubbing) to expose the white (or black) that remains untouched below. I've painted over white walls and then removed them multiple times on a few of my engines.

@breezinup posted:

My recollection, from an extended discussion in a post when the last Legacy Daylights came out, is that some GS4s had whitewalls, but the later GS5 and GS6 models never did (I think that's what was said). In at least some cases, those engines that had whitewalls had them changed to black sometime during their service life. As always, though, my recollection may be at least somewhat incorrect. As probably most know, the surviving 4449 GS4 has been run both with and without whitewalls, although in more recent years - I think - it has been operated just with blackwalls, at least that I've seen.

To my knowledge, all GS locomotives were delivered from Lima with whitewalls, but the SP didn't maintain white driver tires in revenue service so those disappeared pretty quick. The 4449 only has operated with Daylight colors and whitewalls once in 1981, they've been black ever since.