A question on the yellow color. I have a E6 and it sure looks rignt to me. I got a E8 (early model w/hook/horn) and the yellow sure looks different. In back of my mind I seem to recall toward the end of C&NW they did change the color of yellow to make it more lemon yellow, but not sure. Thanks. guys. Dave
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/cnw/
You might want to check out the CNW group on Yahoo and I suspect you will get a more of a respose.
I believe all of the P2K Chicago & North Western E units have been models of the original yellow. The markings on the Es were all older markings
Starting in the early 1980s they went to a new yellow, sometimes called Zito Yellow, that did not age well and in fact turns almost white after years in the sun. That is the lemon yellow you refer to. By that time of course both the E6s and E7s were long gone. The E8s in the 1970s were not as a rule original CNW units but most were purchased from other railroads for the commuter fleet. I know some F units were painted in Zito Yellow (the Executive Fs for the business train) but I think that almost all if not all of their commuter Es were retired by the time Zito yellow came along.
So in the 1990s or so they went back to what they called Old Yellow but it was not an exact match for the old yellow (which I guess we have to call Old Old Yellow). It all gets very complex. But again there were no E units left to be painted into the “new” old yellow.
What I suspect is that P2K wanted to but simply was not able to exactly match the paint. Or they may have received more accurate data on the exact yellow. But I have also seen color photos from the 1960s that suggest that from time to time the C&NW also had problems matching the paint. So I would not let the lack of a match bother me.
Dave Nelson
I agree with Dave - most roads hand-mixed their paints then, over here, they had “recipe books” with the ingredients that you had to mix together, if the quantities were slightly out you got a slightly different shade. I’m guessing similar things existed over there?
OK I have done some research. The true “old yellow” (called English Stagecoach Yellow) was used until 1981, when the C&NW shifted to Safety Yellow, called Zito yellow after a railroad VP. That is the yellow that faded to almost white. I found no evidence that any E unit was painted safety yellow. The C&NW switched to Traditional Yellow in 1991 (by which time all the E units were long gone) – said to be slightly more orange than Old Yellow. However Old Yellow tended to turn orangey as it aged so the difference can be hard to detect if you see a photo of Old Yellow and Traditional Yellow next to each other.
So turning to the LifeLike C&NW E units here is some data for you. Maybe your units have these same numbers.
The ones I have have the silver lettering and side stripe of the glory years of the 400. I cannot say when this changed but I think by the late 1960s they were not painted this way. I remember seeing both E8s and E7s in passenger service in the late 1960s. I have a slight childhood recollection of seeing a highly slanted nose E unit, either E3 or E6, stopped at the South Milwaukee Depot in the mid 1950s when I was perhaps 4 or 5 years old.
I have just one Proto 2000 E6 and it is numbered 5006A… That unit was buiilt 1941 and scrapped in 1959. I think all the CNW E6s were gone by 1959. The E6 is visually almost identical to an E3 and the C&NW E3s were built in 1939 and all were scrapped by 1958.
Turning to the P2K C&NW E7s, I have two
5010B was built in 1947 and scrapped in 1956
5009A was built 1946 scrapped 1962.
Most C&NW E7s were gone by 1971 but one lasted until 1981
Turning to the P2K C&NW E8s I have two and both came with horn hook couplers so maybe your numbers are the same:
5024B was built 1951, retired 1977 and used by RTA until 1983
5027A was built 1953, retired 1977 and used by RTA until 1983.
So as you can see the years when the C&NW had both E6s and E8s in service were in the 1950s
My family moved to Elmhurst in the Chicago suburbs in 1968 [2 blocks from CNW’s West Line] and every month I rode the train into the city for my eye doctor appointment. I clearly recall seeing several times one [and one only] E6 spotted way off to the side by the diesel house or coach shop [or whatever it was where there were lots of locos around] on the north side of the main somewhere east of Elmhurst…it never seemed to move, always sat in the same place, but that slant nose was quite distinctive. A retired unit being cannibalized, perhaps? I do remember being disappointed when it disappeared…
Brian Sherwood
I purchased a set of ten Walthers CNW smooth side cars and wanted to repaint a pair of E units to match them. Floquil CNW yellow was nowhere near as orange as the coaches, but Reefer yellow was fairly close. Still had to add some Reefer orange and touch of light gray to get there. I have no idea if the car color is valid; I just wanted a match.
Hal
Sometimes even the same manufacturer will do a railroad’s colors a little differently over time. The recent Walthers Great Northern Empire Builder passenger car’s orange paint is noticeably darker than Walthers used on previous GN passenger cars, so it looks a little funny if you run the older cars with the EB cars.