New Lionel Milwaukee pass. cars - radical departure from catalog image

The actual finished product looks more vibrant than the bland, drab catalog image. 

Andrew

But which is “correct”?  Milwaukee Road fans?

Jon  

Catalog image was obviously wrong; never seen any Milwaukee Road cars in that livery!

The actual release looks very close to all the Milwaukee passenger cars that I have. I passed on ordering any of what the catalog was presenting because they would not match anything in my fleet.

   Bill T.

Can't explain the difference in the roof color (black vs. silver) but I think there may be a problem in the online rendering of the orange/crimson color scheme - which is not unique to Lionel catalogs.

The true colors are in fact close to the livery of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend, and I recall that years ago MTH cataloged a set of interurbans that the catalog depicted like this:

The body color shown is all wrong and I don't believe that the set was actually produced to look like this  (I passed on it).

The New Lionel RPO car looks a lot like the MTH Madison cars that have been produced in various liveries for years, including Milwaukee Road and South Shore. For the former the catalog image (Railking) looks like this:

which is again not quite right and the cars as produced came out much more like the current Lionel product. I don't have a picture of these but again the orange is more like that used for South Shore Madisons (not my layout but I do have all of these cars):

I know that there's likely a technical difference between the orange used by the Milwaukee Road and the South Shore but the difference as rendered in most models is not obvious.

I can't find a single photo of a Milwaukee Road Madison RPO car as rendered by Lionel and I wonder if, like the MTH South Shore cars, this is essentially a fantasy scheme? The one existing Milwaukee Road car described as an RPO (although configured for baggage) I have found is a streamliner and looks like this:

Overall the similarity between the Lionel RPO and the various MTH Madison cars is strong (right down to the rivets!) and my guess is that the Lionel catalog illustration was no more accurate than some of the MTH ones.

P.S. Just looked at the current Lionel online image of their car and it looks like the body color has been changed in it although the roof color is still black:

These are the only two Milwaukee Road heavyweight references I could find.  One is a restored car, the other a post card:

Rusty

Rusty Traque posted:

These are the only two Milwaukee Road heavyweight references I could find.  One is a restored car, the other a post card:

Rusty

This does not mean that there ever were any but Madison heavyweight RPO cars in Milwaukee Road livery have been cataloged by several manufacturers, mostly in small scales but also by K-Line and MTH in O scale. None of them match the current Lionel offering however and I think it must be a "generic" or fantasy offering:

Closest comparisons I can find are in HO and N but roof and window details differ markedly:

Below are K-Line and MTH models, again differing in significant details (although all of these are in the orange and dark red livery):

Up until around 1950 the MILW passenger car roofs were a medium gray color that's always looked (to me at least) like USN "haze gray" ship color. Then the roofs were repainted black to match the new FP7 diesels, but not all cars got repainted. Aluminum or silver? Uh, no - Lionel should've gone with the black roof for that new RPO. As for MILW orange and maroon, again just my opinion but Lionel's shades have always looked pretty accurate for cars fresh from the paint shop, MTH's shades look like the cars have been on the road for a while. Either one is OK with me as a Milwaukee fan.  

Looks like the silver paint they've been using on smoke boxes.  Definitely wrong for the roof on this car.  

Rusty Traque posted:

These are the only two Milwaukee Road heavyweight references I could find.  One is a restored car, the other a post card:

Rusty

Is there a copyright on the post card ?  I think this started out as a black and white photo which was hand tinted then color separations made of the hand tinted photo and the printing plates made from the separations. I would not bet that the colors are an exact match (chroma and hue)  but would bet their in the ball park.  j

The catalog pictures of the car (Handcock52 picture) in yellow, maroon and black reminds me of the postwar 2351 Milwaukee electric.

The Lionel Catalogue cars would of represented a car painted in  the 1949-1952 painted 1948 cars, the roofs should be grey not silver for pre-1949 cars, the shade of grey will very, as far as the shade of orange......... that changed over the years also and don't forget it faded on the prototype cars, this is one reason I use 3 different brands of orange "Milwaukee Road" paint, In 1952 when the Super Domes arrived the Maroon letter board was eliminated, for an orange letter board with maroon letters

Someone must have gotten a good deal on that silver paint. Niagaras, F3s, H10s, Pacifics.....

The heavyweights did not have a red window stripe.  Here is the correct paint scheme (that no O scale manufacturer has done right).   Red letter stripe, brown roof.

CORRECTION (Thanks  to Mike Slater):  This is the "As Delivered" paint scheme.  Later re-paints included the red window stripe and grey roof.

(photos removed 8/18/19)

The red window stripe was used in the various streamliners.

More pictures from Streamstyle Graphics of various Milwaukee Passenger train paint schemes.  These are custom paint and decals based on the prototype.

Bob

The Lionel Milwaukee Heavyweights that came out with their Bipolar are nice, but still have the red window stripe and grey roof. The roof is easy to repaint brown, but it would be a PIA to paint orange over the red stripe and just leave the window frames red.   Too many windows to mask and the rivets around the windows would prevent effective masking.  

(photos removed 8/18/19)

If anyone has attempted repainting these, I'd love to see them.

Bob

Which is right, are they both right?

I'm guessing this was done in order to look spiffy behind all those fantasy Hiawatha S3's folks are so fond of.

Rusty

Window band paint depends on the time frame, the bi-polar cars are correct to go with the 1949-1955 paint on the bi-polar , in 1952/3 the roofs where all black until 1957 when the cars where painted in up paint, if you have an all black bi-puller than the cars should be painted in a lighter orange and no maroon band, the window band came into fashion with the streamlined Hiawatha's

Rusty Traque posted:

I'm guessing this was done in order to look spiffy behind all those fantasy Hiawatha S3's folks are so fond of.

Rusty

No big deal to repaint a roof, did that to several Lionel Milwaukee road cars to make the fit a latter date

RRDOC posted:

The Lionel Milwaukee Heavyweights that came out with their Bipolar are nice, but still have the red window stripe and grey roof. The roof is easy to repaint brown, but it would be a PIA to paint orange over the red stripe and just leave the window frames red.   Too many windows to mask and the rivets around the windows would prevent effective masking.  

If anyone has attempted repainting these, I'd love to see them.

Bob

cars are prototypically correct for late 40's till 1952 in 52 paint the roofs black than good till 57'

RRDOC posted:

The heavyweights did not have a red window stripe.  Here is the correct paint scheme (that no O scale manufacturer has done right).   Red letter stripe, brown roof.

The red window stripe was used in the various streamliners.

More pictures from Streamstyle Graphics of various Milwaukee Passenger train paint schemes.  These are custom paint and decals based on the prototype.

Bob

until the 1940's when they where repainted with window strip and grey roof, heavyweights where painted to match streamlined cars

Thanks Mike for the correction.  I was a little focused on "As Delivered" and just plain forgot about re-paints.

I remember pouring through my collection of Milwaukee Road books trying (unsuccessfully) to find a color picture of the early heavyweights.  The colorized postcard someone posted above is easily found with a google search and was the only source I could find.

There are tons of Black and White pictures of the heavyweights.  I'd love to see a color picture of them in the 50s.  All the color pictures seem to be of the streamliners.

Bob

That ugly catalog image caused me to not consider it.  I wonder how many sales were lost due to that.

Be interesting to see if these cars will be a paint match for the upcoming Lionel Legacy E-6s.

And IF Lionel were to make the RPO into a Polar express Add On to their Scale Pax sets, they would sell a LOT of them!

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