New Norfolk Southern 21” Cars paint color

Ouch, thats slightly painful. Its hard to believe the reds are still that far off. Its been an issue for years. I wonder where the disconnect is. I’m surprised Lionel doesn't approve color chip samples from the factory prior to painting.

I’m really not surprised anymore.

The saga continues...

They’re letting these vendors fly by the seat of their pants, …….I’d be utterly ashamed to have painted that, and hand those two cars back to the customer,……..AMOF, if that’s how the paint had turned out, I wouldn’t even let the customer see it until I fixed it,……I mean, a slight color variant, and it would more “ appropriate “ ….but given the real cars were painted in the same batch, I’d say that the big L missed this one by a number of light years,….it’s like the NYC Pacemaker cars,….they’re only off by 60-70 shades, ……a near miss in their book I suppose??….those cars undergo paint corrections this fall,….totally off,…...

Pat

It looks like they were going for the Hogwarts passenger cars. I remember someone saying, Ryan or Dave, that they were going to get samples on things to make sure that they were correct. I guess that was for engines mainly. Either that or they have thought they have it under control. Clearly not.

Some of the biggest flubs have come from around 2016-2017(onward) color issues, though some things had come before that. I remember seeing a video on one of the Zephyr's cars missing the second "N" in Finn, smoke box colors being completely off, as well as other detailing near the cabs of engines. The Polar Express debacle. Last one I can remember was the Texas & Pacific engine colors being way less than desirable. I believe that same catalog the Southern offering was also just a bit off(I think just a shade lighter).

Clearly someone has not gotten the memo. Did you reach out to Lionel on this? Not sure if it will do any good, but bringing this up to a bunch that have bought the same cars may create enough noise to make some action like the Polar Express cars(that was fixed, right?).

Yikes, even the redone theater car doesn't match right either.

Send them back

@harmonyards posted:

They’re letting these vendors fly by the seat of their pants, …….I’d be utterly ashamed to have painted that, and hand those two cars back to the customer,……..AMOF, if that’s how the paint had turned out, I wouldn’t even let the customer see it until I fixed it,……I mean, a slight color variant, and it would more “ appropriate “ ….but given the real cars were painted in the same batch, I’d say that the big L missed this one by a number of light years,….it’s like the NYC Pacemaker cars,….they’re only off by 60-70 shades, ……a near miss in their book I suppose??….those cars undergo paint corrections this fall,….totally off,…...

Pat

Pat, that’s been my beef with all of this stuff. For reasons unknown, they can’t seem to get the colors consistently right during the manufacturing process. That’s, obviously, the core of the problem. Yet, somebody in North Carolina sees these problems upon arrival stateside and still ships the pallets out.

@Rider Sandman posted:

Pat, that’s been my beef with all of this stuff. For reasons unknown, they can’t seem to get the colors consistently right during the manufacturing process. That’s, obviously, the core of the problem. Yet, somebody in North Carolina sees these problems upon arrival stateside and still ships the pallets out.

My guess: low bid vendor, …..they get what they pay for, …and pray 80% of the consumers wont care or wont notice,…..I know my customers would puke up their shoes if I handed back a pair of models that looked like that,….😲

Pat

@harmonyards posted:

My guess: low bid vendor, …..they get what they pay for, …and pray 80% of the consumers wont care or wont notice,…..I know my customers would puke up their shoes if I handed back a pair of models that looked like that,….😲

Pat

Well, raise the roof like they did with the Polar Express cars. I remember Ryan getting the riot act read to him over that which he assured folks they would be corrected. I don't know how long that took, but I believe it was resolved after 2-3 years?

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Well, raise the roof like they did with the Polar Express cars. I remember Ryan getting the riot act read to him over that which he assured folks they would be corrected. I don't know how long that took, but I believe it was resolved after 2-3 years?

The problem with the PolEx RPO was reported in October of 2019. Six forum pages and nearly two years later, the replacements showed up in August of 2021. Obviously, the world turned upside down in early 2020, so maybe that also contributed to the long delay.

@Rider Sandman posted:

The problem with the PolEx RPO was reported in October of 2019. Six forum pages and nearly two years later, the replacements showed up in August of 2021. Obviously, the world turned upside down in early 2020, so maybe that also contributed to the long delay.

Yeah, that could be part of it for sure. The main thing is to make noise and tell them this isn't cutting it. The T&P's I think they just said if you don't like it, send it back, but I don't know for sure on that as I didn't order one and only followed that topic for a bit.

Clearly these cars look more like they belong behind a Hogwarts engine and not any Norfolk Southern ones. So, what are they going to do? No noise, nothing. Give it to them, say hey, this clearly is way off. This needs to be corrected.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Yeah, that could be part of it for sure. The main thing is to make noise and tell them this isn't cutting it. The T&P's I think they just said if you don't like it, send it back, but I don't know for sure on that as I didn't order one and only followed that topic for a bit.

Clearly these cars look more like they belong behind a Hogwarts engine and not any Norfolk Southern ones. So, what are they going to do? No noise, nothing. Give it to them, say hey, this clearly is way off. This needs to be corrected.

I bet they match the stripe on the last “J” that was released.

Yeah probably Marty. That was actually the first thing I thought of looking at the pictures above. Funny thing was when I was out at Strasburg when the N&W K's and cars came out, I could swear the color looked just like those in the catalog. I however attributed my eyes deceiving me as "A Trick Of The Light". I do recall that the J's could get the paint corrected if you ordered them from through Mr.Muffins, I don't remember if Lionel had something direct from them.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Yeah probably Marty. That was actually the first thing I thought of looking at the pictures above. Funny thing was when I was out at Strasburg when the N&W K's and cars came out, I could swear the color looked just like those in the catalog. I however attributed my eyes deceiving me as "A Trick Of The Light". I do recall that the J's could get the paint corrected if you ordered them from through Mr.Muffins, I don't remember if Lionel had something direct from them.

For a limited time, Lionel followed Mr. Muffins’ lead and allowed all buyers to ship their Js to Harry to have them repainted at Lionel’s expense.

@Rider Sandman posted:

For a limited time, Lionel followed Mr. Muffins’ lead and allowed all buyers to ship their Js to Harry to have them repainted at Lionel’s expense.

Yup, mine is as was, or as is. Matches the cars, haha.

I returned my J.  Nothing against Harry and his fantastic work but I paid for a correctly factory painted J and didn't receive it.  I didn't want decals and the risk of shipping it around.  It's getting hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when it keeps happening.  Not mad about it, just disappointed to see that the problem still exists.  Because of the recent paint issues I rarely pre-order and when I do it's always with the understanding if it isn't correct I may not be taking it home.

I figured that I update everyone. I emailed Lionel yesterday asking what they will doing about this. Also I am attaching a picture that I took of the cars outside in natural sunlight. Again the car on top is the new run of cars (2227250) and the excursion set from 2019 is on the bottom (1927200).

Brutal. They must have used the leftover “Tuscan” paint from the Legacy S1s.