westinghouse train photos

A few siblings

More fun

75' depressed flats

More pics tomorrow !!

Very nice!  Custom made by whom? 

Sorry about the delay answering your question but just popped back to this thread this morning.  I have not seen the K-Line caboose so have no comparison.  Actually at the time I bought the MTH version I was not aware of any Westinghouse EV caboose(s).  At the time I was trolling eBay and saw the MTH version for sale.  Also at the time did not think this was prototypical so researched and found it was.  So bought the caboose.  The seller asked if I had seen the box car and wanted it also.  Bought the box car without researching.  If researched probably would not have purchased but it has definitely grown on me.

 

 

One thing unless I can actually physically compare different manufacturers items to each other especially for coupler height, will shy away.  Have see different manufacturers items where the couplers are barely in contact with each other.  Because of this if buying unseen will stay with same manufacturer for a consist.

 

Ron

Very nice...like the cars a lot!  (How did you post photos side-by-side??)

 

- Mike

That's quite a collection.

The lighter blue on the top half of the page looks great. I don't remember seeing as much in  the darker blue.

 

these are all made by MTH

 

 

I uploaded photos from my mobile phone so I don't really know?? 

 

Same colors just used the flash on the depressed flat car.

 

I just remember white on a "washed out" looking blue that reminded me of old denim, and a deeper royal blue on whites when I was young. I always liked logos, even as a kid. The Westinghouse W was a real good one.   

Wecx 203 and wecx 212  - note there are differences on many of the details

Wecx 205 - I'm still on the hunt for wecx 207

Railking operating box car

Railking KDKA box car

To sum up the photos is the K-line wecx 104 caboose. I now have 3 of these, 2 of which I plan to sell later. I had a line on the MTH wecx 104 but it ended up being a k-line car in the MTH box. So the hunt for the MTH cabooses wecx 104 and wecx 106 are vigorously in action!!

4 MTH cars left to complete the set;

Sd24 engine 12
Wecx 207 
Wecx 104
Wecx 106

Bill - Would you please take more pics of your Westinghouse box car, I just picked one up and it has some differences.  my "w" logo is transparent, different trucks and some decals are in different locations. i'll post pics of mine as well.  seller claims its a pre-production prototype.  thanks!

 

-Aaron

Hi Aaron:

 

Per your request, I just finished taking some photos of my WECX 2004 for you to compare with yours but it may be an hour or two until I get a chance to upload and post them due to some conflicts including dinner.  I was wondering if you had obtained one of those.

 

Also I was away for a few days late last week and missed seeing the other photos you had posted.  Thanks for pointing out the differences between the first (W) Schnabel and the newer one.   

 

So please stay tuned!

 

Bill 

"conflicts including dinner"  <-- I love it !

 

I'll stay tuned, Thanks Bill!

 

 

Bill,

   I really do like the Westinghouse trains, real nice stuff, glad you brought this thread back up for a 2nd look.  I wish I would have taken pictures of the Red & White Switchers that were used in the East Pittsburgh Plant for you, especially when the over head isle Cranes, were off loading the big Turbo stuff.  The Union Railroad old Green Switcher was on the isle a lot also in that era.  The Blue stuff really does look way cool.  We got to see them very sparingly at East Pittsburgh however.

PCRR/Dave

Aaron:

 

My wife cooked another good dinner!  Anyway, attached are photos of my WECX 2004.  I see several differences from yours as follows and there may be more that I don’t see so take a close look:

 

1. The large (W) logo on mine is a very thin sticker but it’s not transparent like on  yours  
2. It looks like your “Return to … when empty” on your car is a sticker but that text is printed directly on my car. 
3. the plastic added-on under frame details on mine are all black while yours are white
4. my trucks are different than yours in the shape, coloring and number of springs

 

This car was only available in a P&LE set in 2004.  I bought my car on eBay in late 2004 from a seller who advertised it as being from a “set break-up”.

 

I would agree that yours is a pre-production prototype like the seller said.  I remember seeing a seller on eBay listing many different MTH cars which he advertised as pre-production or prototypes over the last few years.

 

HTH and stay tuned for more Westinghouse photos,

 

Bill

Hi Dave:

 

Your welcome but Aaron should get the credit for reactivating this thread.  And yes, photos of those generators being off-loaded with the overhead cranes would be priceless today.

 

Regards,

 

Bill 

So if mines a preproduction model, would it be bad to change the trucks? Mine are plastic.

     I hope you guys do not mind me adding my $0.02 worth? If you look at the trucks on Aaron's Generator boxcar it looks just like the Lionel GM Generator boxcar (witch 1 happens to be for sale 3 up from the bottom on the first page of the OGR For Sale forum right now). The baring area is square on them and WftTrains bearing is round with A triangle in the center. Aarons trucks only have 2 springs and WftTrains trucks have 3 springs. The block above the springs on Aarons trucks are white and the block above WftTrains trucks are black. The decals on Aarons seem to be printed on clear decal paper. the ones on WftTrains are silk screened on. I was thinking that the first one that Aaron has might have been A Lionel that got repainted and decals put on for A proto type? Just A guess. Choo Choo Kenny

Bill and Dave,

 

I would imagine that back in the day(or even now for that matter),  employees taking photos on company property of the equipment,  processes,  or just the ordinary workers doing their jobs would be forbidden or highly frowned upon.  It may have even been grounds for dismissal.  After WW11,  the cold war threat and industrial espionage/spying took precedent at many companies.   Basically there were many "staged" company photos.   When I worked at US Steel's Homestead Works in the 70's and 80's,  you still weren't allowed to take photos even though the equipment was almost 100 years old and they were already tearing part of the plant down!!!  I did manage to sneak my camera in a couple of times and took photos inside my shop,  mainly to take photos of the guys that I worked with.  Those photos are very dear to me.  I'm glad I did because most of the guys are  now at that big plant in the sky.

 

It's a shame that more photos of the equipment from some of these companies, especially railroad related, don't exist simply because of the times and situations.

 

Nick 

The 2 Lionel's have port hole windows on the sides

50 Shades of Blue!

 

I had noted in the video I posted much earlier in this thread that the K-Line (W) caboose and the (W) transformer on the K-Line Erie Lackawanna flat car were a different shade of blue than MTH used on their (W) rolling stock.  Other members have posted about that color difference as well.  The first attached photo is a sample showing my K-Line caboose next to the rounded roof box car that was the subject of a post earlier tonight.  The difference is readily apparent.  So which one is the correct (W) shade of blue? 

 

This subject came up on another Forum about 5 years ago.  So back then I did a Google search and came up with a color called “Westinghouse PMS 285 blue”.  In this case “PMS” stands for Pantone Matching System, apparently an industry standard color matching system.  Following is a link to the PMS document which includes a color chart: http://dynodan.com/image-new/pms-chart.pdf.  The color PMS 285 blue is included in that chart and I have copied it into the second attachment. 

 

Obviously colors are subjective and there are variations in monitors, etc. but to me it looks like the K-Line blue is closer than the MTH blue. 

 

But I’m still not convinced that “Westinghouse PMS 285” was the only shade of blue used by Westinghouse over the years.  I have many artifacts from work that “followed me home” from the office over the years and they vary considerably in shade of blue.  Obviously some of that variance is from fading due to exposure to light but some do not seem to be faded.  As I recall from our graphics people there were “official” specifications for using the logo and using colors and the specs on colors allowed a range of shades of blue.

 

Bill

I was told its periwinkle blue.  I do collision repair work and have access to ppg paints full database and color chips. Took my sd24 to work and it matched up to this on a spray out card. As for 50 shades of blue, mine are black & blue because they came with a beating from the boss after she found out how much I've been buying lately!!!!

Here are some interesting (W) toy train-related items.  

 

Long before MTH and K-Line made Westinghouse train models in 3-rail O gauge, (W) had a long history of involvement with toy trains.  The toy train e-unit was invented by 2 Westinghouse engineers in the mid-1920’s, although there’s some question whether or not they invented it on their own time or on company time. 

 

Those of us older folks certainly remember buying Westinghouse light bulbs for our home; in fact even today you can buy Westinghouse-branded light bubs although they are made by a company using the name under license.  But did you know that back in the day, Westinghouse also made light bulbs for Toy Trains? 

 

Attached are 3 photos of two boxes of Westinghouse Toy Train light bulbs that I picked up at York many years ago.  I have also seen these for sale on eBay.  The Westinghouse logo on these boxes is an older one that was used from 1936 through 1960 which includes both some of the pre-war and some of the post-war toy train period.    

 

I have done some research through pre-war and post-war Lionel instruction manuals and service manuals and can’t find any reference to that bulb number.   So over on the “main” Forum I just posted a message asking Forum members for information on where these bulbs may have been used.  Let’s see what they say.

 

Here’s a link: Westinghouse Toy Train light bulbs, where were they used? | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum

 

Bill  

Hi Aaron:

 

Thanks for that info.  I copied your periwinkle blue photo file and my PMS 285 blue photo file into a single MS PowerPoint file next to each other and they are very close.  Yours is just slightly lighter. 

 

But again, the file copying and transfer process could have slightly changed either one.

 

Have you tried matching the K-Line caboose color with the ppg database and chips?

 

Bill 

Bill, by any chance did you know or know of a Carl Schroeder from the Sharon facility?

 

Ron

Hi Ron:

 

No, I'm sorry but I didn't know him.  I never worked at Sharon or at any of the other  transformer plants, just in Power Generation and Nuclear.

 

Bill

 

For all of you fellow Westinghouse fans out there, here are photos and a video of the latest addition to my layout.  While the main subjects are not a Westinghouse train, if you look closely you will see a Westinghouse box car in the background.

 

The animated sign shows up better with the room lights off, so that’s why I included a video with the lights off. 

 

Bill

Business is booming!   A traffic jam at the loading dock.

 

The sign is great-I also have one.  Miller Engineering just recently came out with a new Westinghouse sign-don't know if you knew about that one.  I remember the real one that was in Pittsburgh.  They had many variations on how to sequence the lighting of the letters.

 

Nick

Hi Nick:

 

Yes I saw that new Miller sign but I’ve had this one for a long time and I’m finally getting to use it.  It has 9 W’s like the real one that I remember.  However the 3 W’s on the new Miller sign are all individually animated which is neat.  Miller does a great job (and are an OGR Forum sponsor)!

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

Are those the winrose 1/64 westinghouse trucks? The truck on the far right looks bigger, custom? Very cool along with the miller signs!

Hi Aaron:

 

Yes, two of them are Winross and I believe they are 1/64^th as that’s the standard Winross scale.

 

Using the 3^rd picture and numbering from left to right, the 1^st and the 4^th (dark blue) trucks are Winross.  I bought the first on eBay and the other one at York. 

 

The other two are ERTL and I believe they are the same scale as the Winross trucks.  The 2^nd one from the left was custom made for the division I worked in – Power Generation.  It was a model of a 1:1 tractor trailer we had which used to travel around the U.S. to power plant sites to help sell our turbine-generator upgrade services.  We gave out the models to customers at the sites.  The 3^rd one has a longer trailer and is lettered for what was the Coatings Division.  I assume it was custom made for that division as I doubt there was an off-the-shelf ERTL product lettered like that.

 

The building is a Bachmann Plasticville Factory with a home-made Westinghouse sign above the door.

 

Bill

 

quick little vid

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5MjvRhoNQo



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cK9KVdMk8M

Just sent payment on this very cool custom!!!!!!