I was flipping through my Walthers Flyer and saw their GP7 passenger units, one of which is in a Pennsylvania Railroad Green paint scheme, but not Brunswick Green, more like a Sage Green, kinda like Canadian Nationals old green. Any ideas on this?
The only Walthers GP7’s I come up with claim to be painted in Brunswick Green. You say it’s not Brunswick Green. I do think it looks kinda “bright” for BG, but I’m not an official Pennsy kind of guy.
A possibility is that the green is really darker, but that they dialed up the brightness of the photo to illustrate the details.
One could, I suppose, order one or more of these and find out on arrival just what the color really is.
Ed
First of all there is a PRR Historical Society issue with the green paint being called Brunswick green or Dark Green locomotive Enamel (DGLE). Latest is either MAY be ok but DGLE is preferred. It is very close to black and anything else is not right. Some maufacturers do not want the modeling commitee to help or advise them. Seems that one would be pretty easy to get right.
Weren’t there some GG1’s that were green? Maybe not, I see models that are green and a photoshopped poster, but not a real loco. I would describe the color as olive drab. Did they do that in photoshop just to show the detail better? No idea, but I’m not fond of that shade of green
Here’s a pretty decent looking green (Bachmann). To me:
Here’s the Walthers GP7:
Ed
That Walther’s unit looks the same color as my P2k Reading GP7s. Not right for PRR.
–Randy
Yeah that’s what I was trying to say, I highly doubt that the shade is accurate as far as the photos go. Hopefully it is just a photo shop thing.
Actually sage is a light green and nowhere near as dark as the lighter dark green on the Bachmann locomotive.
here is the answer to your question http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr4859gga.jpg
Yeah I think that it’s a shade of olive drab instead of Brunswick green. Big mistake if the models are actually that color!
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Maybe not that big of a mistake.
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The sun presents a tremendous amout of light against a large surface area on the real locomotives. We cannot duplicate that in our train rooms. That is why we paint our steam locomotives dark gray instead of black.
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Military modelers have understood “paint scale” for decades. This means that a 1:144 model of a P-38 should be a lighter green than a 1:48 scale model of the same airplane.
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Following this idea, an N scale PENNSYLVANIA GP-9 should be lighter green than an O scale version of the same model.
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*** NOT MY MODEL***
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This is one of my 1:144 scale P-38s, painted a more “correct” color green, but you can see, it does not look quite the same, or as correct as the lighter colored model.
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A real P-38:
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Model railroaders have never fully engaged this idea.
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-Kevin
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An interesting idea. But how to quantify it?
Meanwhile, we have an HO model that looks “funny”, to an assortment of modelers. And this is with models professionally photographed by Walthers, themselves.
I just received my Walthers flyer. The PRR GP9 looks awful. Either it DOES look awful. Or their photographer and art department is showing us a total failure of photography.
Yikes. Is all I can say.
Ed
A minor variation is acceptable.
I think it’s a appearance thing, for example at the club they have a few woodchip cars which have rather bright shades of blue as their paint, in my opinion they could use a slightly duller version of the color so as to not look toy-like.
As I said a minor variation, Brunswick green can be blacker, or greener, as long as it’s still the “same” color, like my BLI PRR T-1 it is actually a grayer version of Brunswick green, but still if you look at it you see its not black, but it’s not green, but not grey either, it’s a little of all three.
OK, gotta ask…if you are not in the market for it, why care about the color in an advertising flyer? Obviously the color in a picture or image can differ from the real item. And as mentioned, colors fade and age too, along with the fact that the paint formula may change over time as well.
But it comes back to this…if you ain’t buying, who cares?
One reason could be because there are some customers who “might not know any better”. And then come to regret the purchase after finally finding out. Afterwards. I have benefitted several times by having such mistakes pointed out before I spent my money.
Another could be that the manufacturer is not aware of the mistake. Yet. It does seem likely that they wouldn’t intentionally make a mistake, so informing might give them a chance to correct it. Note that these paint schemes have just been announced. There is likely still time to make the correction. Whether or not this information is conveyed privately or in public, it still is useful.
A third reason is that it establishes, when combined with other errors, the extent of “mistakeness” of a manufacturer. And the more mistakeness, the more eagle eyed one should be. So when the manufacturer later produces something for YOUR railroad, you can apply a little extra eye-time.
So. There’s three reasons. Maybe someone can come up with more.
Ed
It’s so another newbie less knowledgeable who might be lurking here and considering purchasing the model can know that it’s not exactly accurate in its paint color.
It’s called contributing to the community.
I wouldn’t put too much into a comparison of two model photos (Bachmann and Walthers) taken by different photographers under (most likely) different lighting conditions. I think a PRR fan would probably need to see the actual model and judge how correct it would look on their layout.
Kevin raises a great point about model vs. real colors. Military modellers routinely paint things a lighter shade than the actual plane, tank etc., knowing that under artificial lighting the actual color would look too dark on a model. Some of my fellow oldsters might remember the hubbub 25 years ago or so when Stewart came out with Burlington Route F units painted with the correct prototype shade of light gray. The real engines in the sunlight looked white despite actually being light gray; the models under indoor lights looked…well gray, kinda like primer gray or even a touch darker.
So, how did the Brunswick Green weather on the prototype? I assume it got lighter…but did it look greener? Or, did it just look like a lighter shade a off-black?
Tom
The P38 model looks good because the color is “close enough” if it was a lime, light moss green, or seafoam green it would obviously be a failure to match the real thing.
From what I’ve seen is PRR units “tend” to fade to a grayer shade of not quite black with a shade of green.
I recently repainted a Tyco/Mantua Little 6. I used a dark gray rattle can primer, and I wish I had stopped there. I thought it looked too gray, so I painted it a flat black. It looks like a black hole on my layout:
I’m going to have to lighten it up a bit…