New Lionel State of Maine PS-1 Boxcar: Is the color right?

Color is subjective.  It depends on lighting, (daylight, fluorescent, incandescent, CFL, etc,)  blue sky, cloudy sky, how the paint is applied applied, the type of material it's been applied to, whether or not there's primer underneath and probably several other factors.

Case in point...

Same model locomotives, different lighting, also different cameras.

Cool white CFL:

Daylight CFL:

Prototype photo:

Also, you could paint the car with the exact paint the prototype used and it would look different than the prototype photo's.

Rusty

The boxcar is in an area shaded by trees, so there is less light, making it look darker.

For a scale model you do not want the painters painting it in a color that is too many shades darker. That ends up looking horrible. Take a look at the MTH TTX FBOX 50' High-Cube Box Cars. Too dark of a shade of yellow, and it is yuck.

Looks nearly perfect to me!!!  But what di I know??

Fredstrains

Another thing to bear in mind is that the photograph of the model looks as though it is lit by a rather close flashgun. This will tend to bleach the colours a little. Also, red is often a difficult colour for digital cameras to reproduce accurately. 

But, having said all that, it looks fine to me. 

Car colors depend on the time frame the photo was taken.

Even restored museum cars can be a shade off.

Not many old photos taken of cars that were newly painted back then.

Old photos still around today have faded as well.

Since we didn’t see these old style pristine cars in real life, I’m not sure why manufactures continue to sell them that way. This relates to the posted question.

Every time I open a new box car, I say, hmmm, never seen one look like that.

So I'm not sure why anyone is concerned about the colors.

The photo below represents the end of days (mid 1970’s) for this car.

Notice the faded sky blue toward the upper areas caused by the elements.

Never go by a catalog photo. They are generally incorrect.

Color may be close but the 5100 series were a different style and never got the "STATE of MAINE" Scheme!

Gunny

In addition to lighting of the photo, there is also a lot of color variation with computer screens, at least the home use and laptop types. It's very hard to comment on color accuracy, especially in finer tones, by looking at a typical computer screen. You really have to look at the real thing to judge accurately. All this said, at least looking at the original photo on my computer screen, the red does look a bit too light to my eyes.

Some people were just born too late to see them.  

A surprising number of boxcars in the 40s and 50s had paint that was in very good condition, some even with a nice sheen. There are many You Tube videos of films shot in this era that show some very clean cars mixed into most consists.

I do not want to take anything away from the artistry required to produce the beautiful weathering jobs like Steve (SIRT) does on a regular basis, but there isn't anything wrong with a few bright shiny ones in a train of those eras. From the mid to late 60s and 70s on, of course, it was a different story.

Jim

Jim is correct.

I don’t photo or showcase the new cars because there’s basically nothing to see.

Most of my weathered collection is heavily weathered on one side and almost stock new on the other.

So I can mix and match any combination on any train.

I didn't mean to drift off topic.

Steve,

My bad too for helping stray off topic....and you're right - too much bright and shiny can certainly be "dull".

Jim

Jim, that MOPAC Eagle cannot be prototypical.

The door should be all yellow the way the prototypical Lionel car did it.

Scrappy

This is my Lionel 6464275 repro version from about 1996. The color looks OK to me. Photographed without flash.

And Chris Dunn's photo for comparison ...

Hmm, now the blue on my car looks kinda 'plastic'. Now I'm unhappy!

Mine arrived yesterday and its a stunner.  One of the first boxcars I have seen made by Lionel's vendor MKT.  Jerry Calabrese announced in one of his resent Q&A's that Lionel shifted all premium rolling stock production and all but starter set engines to MKT.  The easy way to tell..the plastic wrap around the car is the cloudy type found wrapped on most locos.

I agree with Mike W - it is a stunning car. This had to be one of the more complicated paint decorating jobs I've seen, especially on the doors of the car.