Suggestions to match paint on Williams RDG Heavyweights?

If you are trying to follow the exact color of the Reading King Coal cars go to Reading Company Technical & Historical Society webpage or go to Wikipedia.com and look for; Reading Railroad, Reading Company, Reading Lines, or Philadelphia & Reading Railways.

I am not 100% positive but Reading used a shade called Reading green, their own special color.

 

BTW; about those Reading passenger cars by Williams, are they from the Crown Edition era? I bought some that had non-opening knuckle couplers and some with opening knuckle couplers. On the opening couplers the truck assemblies look more like K-Line than they do Williams. The first set I have was a six car set by Williams in the Crown Edition, non-opening couplers and they don't want to hold the track even on straight sections.

Currently Williams by Bachmann or WBB is not making any passenger cars for the Reading Company.

 

Bought an MTH Philadelphia & Reading caboose to go with my MTH RDG T-1 4-8-4.

 

Lee Fritz

No, as I said, I'd rather not entirely re-letter the cars, I'd rather match the existing paint and only paint over the window bands to make solid green cars.

 

I'm not sure when these were made, but they have operating couplers, and they're definitely Williams, they're a 6 car set that came in one big outer package with two windows.

I doubt you will find a close match. I think you will probably have to mix some paints and see how they dry. I have only met one real master of that art.  BTW, I always wondered if the Reading had many clerestory heavyweight cars? There seems to be little photographic record.

No, they didn't have many, if any.  As I said, I got a good deal on this set, and I'd rather make them as feasible as possible until such a time as I can get a more accurate set (which to my knowledge the only commercially produced set was the SGL set that was made to go with their G3, and are both rare and pricey.)  I may eventually try to build and cast my own roofs to get closer to correct.

I aplogize if I am hijacking this thread.  There is a picture of a Reading Company Clerestory heavyweight car in the "History of a Coal Age Empire" book with a caption about Hershey Employees picnic.  I have a video of a clerestory heavyweight diner on its last run.  Also have video of late 30's - early 40's passenger trains with Reading Company visible on clerestory roofed passenger cars.  More of the trains in the video are turtleback.

No, you're right,  last night I did notice some clerestory HWs in the background of some loco pics I was looking at on northeastern.railfan.net. All the same, the King Coal was almost always turtlebacks.

Don't know what to tell you about matching paint, because it may be trial and error. Also Williams used a differant type of clear coating, don't know if it used that far back as your set of cars.

 

The only six car set of Reading Company passenger cars, that I am familiar with, was the Crown Edition six car set from almost 20 years ago. Have seen two versions of the set, one with fixed couplers and one with opening couplers and I think the opening couplers are newer set.

 

Bachmann by Williams might have left over Reading Company four car sets(if you can locate one) but NO six car sets.

 

Just a little side info, I do not see many Reading Lines or Reading Company items for sale on ebay or choochooauctions.com

 

Lee Fritz

This is my opion about Williams and Reading Railroad items; they get it wrong many times as Reading bought some unusual stuff for a freight line. GP-38's were not aquired by Reading but Bachmann/Williams made one. Reading had the GP-39-2 model and GP-40.

 

Williams has some very good quality but the actual model is not that close to what the real railroad ran.

 

Lee Fritz