Subway cars are getting arder and harder to come by. Walthers/Life-Like seems to be uninterested in the business even though all runs have been completly sold out rather quickly. You would think they would make some more, but they are not you and they will not listen to me.
Anyway a hobby shop had some in green, a four car set. I bought it, even though tha was the highest price I have ever paid for these cars. But LION runs six car trains. What is a LION to do. Well, him has a pair of RED cars, the sort that came out of their first run. So him paints them, right?
Well LION has always claimed that true colors do not matter, so him went to his paint shelf and found something that looked ok, and him brought the paint and the cars to the nice air-conditioned office of him to see what could be done. LIONS do not use spry brushes or the such (You have to CLEAN those things), so him used paint brushes. Furry paws of LION are not as steady as knead be for such fine work, but big furry paws is all the LION has to work with, so him did what him could. It goes without saying that ewe could have done better, but you are not here, so…
I think that you’re in my age group so you’ll likely remember that by the mid 1960s the IRT trains were running with mixed models and colors. I remember that quite well. When school was out for summer break, my Dad used the car to go to work so my Mom took my sister and I with her to shop and do errands, most often via subway. ( .35 price for a token was a sweet deal!). I seldom saw an “all red” or “all green” train. The trains on the links below are what was typical and what I clearly remember riding on. (We often rode the #2).
I think it’s possible that the reason Walthers is not producing any more IRT subway cars is due to MTH’s version. They’re expensive, but dimensionally more accurate, equipped with interior lighting, and the underbody is better detailed.
I re-read my post. I realize that I might have come across negatively, which was not my intention. My apologies. My thinking was that you are modeling the IRT, circa mid 1960s thru 1970, before the silver and blue MTA scheme became dominant and I was just pointing out that mixed trains are prototypical.
No problem, the LION knows that. But LIONS are rather rigid in their thinking, and like things doen decently and in order. You know. Kill… Eat… Sleep!
Him would not think of having different colours on a single train, and from a modeling standpoint, her is why: The eye would latch on to the brightly colored car and then realize how short the train really is. With identical cars, the eye runs back and forth along the consist and for some reason the consist looks bigger than it really is.
It is true in the days of the singles, which these cars represent, thing were always mixed up. but then the cars were somewhat identical mechanically, and could not only run in a mixed consist, but could all be repaiared by the same shop.
Now in the case of my railroad, I will put the red birds and the green birds on the express tracks, let us say that the red cars are number (3) trains and are serviced at Lenox Avenue, and let us say the athe green cars are the number (2) train and are serviced at 241st Street. Maybe the GEs went to Lenox, and the Westinghouse motors went to Wakefield. Let us say that the GEs were painted at Coney Island, while the Westinghouse cars were painted at Wakefield. Suppose the TA switched from green to red inbetween these periods. Ergo, what I have builded.
Now on the Local, I have brown cars and silver and blue cars, and they were maintained at say, 207th Street. Maybe they are all the same, but the brown cars were not yet updated to Lord Roanan’s new scheme, but they all ran on the (1) train.
I rode the NYC subways many years ago and I remember them not looking any better than your recent paint job! And even then, the grafitti covered most of the paint! Nice work, keep it realistic, even if it was painted by a Lion!
A very very long time ago. There is NO grafitti on NYCT trains, and all trains are stainless steel.
Anyway… My cars are from the Carbon steel era, many paint schemes were used, thae last of the paints used on the carbon stee trains were special, so that any paint can be washed off of the train except, of course, the paint that was supposed to be there.
Agree but in the 60 70 era graffiti was quite prresent (look at the opening scene in Welcome Back Kotter) so I am guessing you are modeling toward the end of “Bird” era when the washable paint was used.
Although grafitti was present in small quantities during the late 60s, it was not generally spread over the system. The big grafitti “epidemic blowup” oozed in after 1971 and things slid downhill from there. I witnessed it. Transit officials fought unsuccessfully against it over the years. Thankfully David Gunn took the helm of the MTA in 1984. He took an aggressive stance against grafitti and pushed hard to secure funding to clean up the trains and the stations. It was during this time that the nickname for the repainted carbon steel trains “Red Birds” was coined. [;)]
