I have two sets of Milwaukee Road passenger cars both by KLine. One is a heavyweight and the other is a streamlined consist. I have KLine's ABA diesel set to go with the streamlines. I just got Lionel's ABA F7 set of diesels. I have Lionel's GP9 and MTH's SW9 both Milw. Rd. There is a noticeable difference between the the MTH and the Lionel/KLine orange with MTH's being a lot lighter. Does anyone know which is more true to the originals? They all look good, I am more curious than concerned. MilwRdPaul
Replies sorted oldest to newest
My son didn't buy the Lionel F7s as he thought the orange was too dark. The Inspection car also is a bit too dark but has a great paint job. I bought that one.
Between all the brands there sure is alot different shades of orange on Milwaukee engines and cars.
I will usually paint my Milwaukee equipment with one of three diffrent shades of milwaukee road orange paint, and I will switch from project to project. this simulates fadeing, diffrent manufactures of orange paint the Milwaukee bought at the local hardware store where the item was painted. so running equipment of diffrent shades is prototypical
I've seen Milwaukee Orange on actual equipment in shades that run from darker than what I would consider historically "normal" (almost reefer orange) on factory-fresh diesels, all the way to old Geeps and switchers so bleached out by the sun that the orange is almost more of a peach color. Being a MILW fan, Mike has probably seen the same color spread. On my O gauge stuff I've always thought the orange and maroon colors Lionel used on their 16" Milwaukee passenger set (6-19185/86/87/88) from 1999 were pretty accurate, in my eyes at least. Somebody else might see it totally different.
Hi Paul,
As Bob, Mike, and Jerry said, Milwaukee orange faded a lot (and quickly) in service. A mix of oranges is quite prototypical. Also keep in mind that the orange applied on the orange and black freight scheme was lighter than the orange and maroon passenger scheme.
I guess that no matter which way you look at it, my orange will always be the 'right' orange because of the fading and different shades done by the Milwaukee Road themselves! Thanks to all of you for your imput on this question. Whatever shade it is, it is still the best paint scheme out there. MilwRdPaul
My son didn't buy the Lionel F7s as he thought the orange was too dark. The Inspection car also is a bit too dark but has a great paint job. I bought that one.
Between all the brands there sure is alot different shades of orange on Milwaukee engines and cars.
I passed on the Lionel MR F7s also due to the too dark shade of the orange(and the orange fuel tanks).The Lionel MR inspection car's orange is too dark too,but doesn't look bad if it not near any other correctly painted MR equipment.I think the correct shade of Milwaukee Road orange is the Floquil MR orange.Their shade of orange is what I think is correct,or at least looks the best to me.
Dan
Again, thanks to all for your imput. I bought the Lionel F7's because of legacy and my KLine F7's were getting tired. I don't know if it was coincidence or the fact that Lionel bought KLine, but the Lionel F7's paint job looks real close to the KLine paint job.
I pretty much agree with what has been said already. There were a lot of shade variations on Milwaukee orange (which, curiously, was officially called yellow) due to sun fading, cleanliness, and batch variation. The color used in the 30's seems to be somewhat lighter than what was used in the 50's.
I see the Lionel color as too deep and saturated, and the MTH color as too light and lacking in saturation. The MTH color varies quite a bit. The K-Line color is very dark and heavy on the red, but I've seen prototype cars almost that shade. IMHO the most prototypical Milwaukee orange is the one used by Weaver. It's in the middle between the Lionel and MTH shades. You can buy that color of Scalecoat paint from then.
The lack of color uniformity is a problem putting together a passenger train. The circus-wagon colors of the Lionel Atlantic and cars don't go with anything else. I tried putting the engine with a set of Weaver cars, which have the most prototypical paint job, and it was a disaster. They didn't look good together at all.
I have ordered the MTH F-units in preference to the Lionel. The catalog art shows a better color than previous MTH offerings; we'll see how it turns out. I hope to sell one of my K-Line sets to help pay for it.