New Lionel Reading Passenger Cars or How Authentic Will Lionel's Colors Be?

At Trainfest in Milwaukee two months ago, Ryan Kunkle told me Lionel had pretty much convinced the Chinese factory of the need for pre-production test shots so that Lionel could subsequently approve full production.

The reason was the ongoing paint problems, which of course others have reported here.

The factory had previously resisted, citing the costs associated with setting up for an early production sample. But once the factory became responsible for separate production runs to correct the problems on their dime, they soon decided that maybe a production sample subject to approval was a good idea.

Of course, I have no idea if this pertains to all production of O gauge trains by Lionel.

Ryan also said that the factory’s color charts weren’t matching the ones Lionel had. So they were trying to get on the same page in that regard as well.

To get their attention on posts such as this, you shouldn’t depend on the busy staff reading through all the posts on a given day. Instead, alert Ryan or Dave by typing the @ sign plus their forum usernames. @Dave Olson and @Conrail6358

Ryan is trying his best to make sure the colors will be correct. I spoke to him yesterday regarding the Conrail- Rotary hoppers bring reissued. He stated that he was going to match the Conrail- red with the previous set about a decade ago although the color was reported to be a bit more brown than red.

That's good to hear. Thank you!

Ryan has been super helpful on this issue.

He even sent me a production drawing showing the colors Lionel specified for the new GTW SD38's. They're now using the Pantone Color Matching System (PMS#), which is traditionally a system for the printing industry. You might not find an "exact" match for some railroad colors with Pantone, but it will be very close, and probably not that noticeable even for us who are picky about these things. Their factory in China can easily pull a PMS chart and make sure things match the spec.

Hopefully, that will help things. We shall see.

Has anyone received these passenger cars with pictures to share? Or their Chessie or Boston & Maine versions?