Painting Details on Lionel Post War Cars

It's a mindset thing. Typically, PW guys are not in the "paint it/detail it" group, unless it involves restoration. Some of these pieces can be valuable, also. PW/MPC fans tend toward enjoying their stuff as toy trains, not model railroads.

Nothing wrong with that.  Not my thing, but I understand the appeal.

Particularly on older trains there is a feeling among many that they ought not to be modified re collectability, value, keep in original condition, etc.  Broadly speaking stuff is more valuable when not modified.  Obviously, it depends on the piece.  This point of view would particularly apply to older pre-war trains.  The value of some pieces would be more affected that others by modification.  Is the difference in value worth the benefit of detailing the piece.  Individual call.  Your example piece would little changed in value by detail painting.  Personally, I would do it in this case.  Maybe not to a lithographed Ives from the 1930s

@D500 and @ogaugenut,

Thanks.  My stuff is not the old, old stuff.  The oldest from my collection as a kid is a 671 and the 2046 coal tender, some random cars, and a 6517 caboose.  I actually have a rare version of the 6262 wheel car, so I wouldn't touch that.  The only things I've acquired in adulthood have been postwar and modern things, and nothing beyond normal market value.  The one in the picture was acquired a few months ago, so I have no major attachment to it other than it's a nice car.  I hesitated in painting the example above for pretty much the reasons you stated.  I may end up painting it, and if I do I'll post a pic in this thread.  I looked up that car in Greenberg's just now, and a mint one will go for $48.  So, not a lot of exposure!

I modified a post-war 736 by upgrading to TMCC via ERR.  I have painted cars and added detail, its fun.

Apparently you haven't clicked on my 027 is still fun repaint link that is below my signature. I've always accepted I'm one of the odd men out on this forum. I run my layout on DC current, buy a lot of used beaters, and do a lot of repainting as well as kitbashing.

So here above is one of the 8-inch type 027 flat cars. I cut down the length of the searchlight plastic base housing to make it fit more comfortably. The railing around the searchlight itself is a metal dome platform from a tank car. The trucks are die-cast K-Line sprung trucks that I drilled out the mounting hole larger so I could use a bigger and better fitting screw mount.

Since taking this photo, I have added handrails on each end of the flat car, that I made from cutting off the handrails from an K-Line MP-15 frame, which I got for the purpose of parts. As you can see texgeekboy, I've painted some of the molded in details you mentioned, in addition to the control panel on the opposite side of the car, though you can see a hint of hint of it behind the two hose reels. It takes a very steady hand to paint those details, along with a small good quality paint brush, without ruining the base housing with paint slop.

As I explained in my below linked thread, I started my train repaint process with Plasticville buildings, doing repainting and kitbashing. With that, I gained some practice and gained the confidence to move on to the trains themselves. As I mentioned, I repaint either beaters or low cost common items with little collectability. As referenced above by others, I certainly wouldn't repaint something that was either rare or in outstanding condition for its' age.

What are they now worth? (as also referenced by others above) That's a personal question. It's worth something to me, but I can tell you for a fact, if you ever have to sell your trains, they will not be worth as much to anyone purchasing your collection, regardless of any improvements you've made. Just as they are not worth as much without original boxes. BUT as for me, I really enjoy the process as well as the finished results.

And in truth, we humans buy a lot of stuff in our lifetimes that ends up being worth absolutely nothing. So the fact that you can even get something on the dollar for your trains - even good quality repaints - puts you ahead of many other purchases you might make in this lifetime.

@brianel_k-lineguy,

Thanks for the info.  I sheepishly admit I did not do a search of OGR before I posted my question.  I almost always do.  Your thread was about 1.5 years before I joined.

The picture you posted (the yellow part) looks to be exactly the part from my car.  The searchlight and guys are a little different, but I very much like what you've done.

Thanks again.

I 'finished' my 6822.  I decided that painting this stuff is a lot like pruning trees, once you start it's hard to stop.  I could do more, but I want to move onto some other stuff.  I used water-based acrylics, so cleanup was easy.  I used an ultra fine tip paint pen, but that still wasn't fine enough.  I ended up whittling down tooth picks and using the ends to apply the paint as close as possible to the end of the object.  I also used toothpicks to get rid of over paint.  It doesn't scratch the surface like an exacto knife.

You can't see everything that I painted, and some of the detail work isn't clear.  The hardest part was painting the 'TRACK MAINTENANCE' letters on the top of the box by the operator.  I decided the best I could do was make it look like the paint had worn off.

I may get back to do more to this if I ever really get bored, and that does happen!

I've modified a pair of 44 missile launchers.  Painted some of the details and added front couplers and LED headlights.  Not something I'd do to a valuable piece.

@cbq9911a ,

Yeah, mine wasn’t valuable either.  I’ll probably add some appropriate cautionary decals as well.