Why no dark olive green SP plastic heavyweight cars in HO?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi folks,

I´m just asking myself this question. Recently, American Z Line has released a heavyweight Sunset Limited in Z gauge, and Coach Yard has also released the heavyweight Sunset Limited in HO scale but it´s brass. As far as I know there are no ready to run plastic SP heavyweight cars in HO scale available except some old Rivarossi cars (only lettered SP Lines!) and Branchline kits. If one wants to model a ready to run SP heavyweight train after the SP Lines era (=post 1946) in HO scale you simply have nothing to buy when you can´t afford brass. And I don´t understand why IHC and Walthers released their SP heavyweight cars only in two tone grey, and Bachmann only in Daylight paint. I think there has never been any SP heavyweight train at any time who was entirely painted in two tone grey or Daylight paint. Almost on all photos of SP heavyweight trains that I saw the cars were painted in dark olive green, and there were only very few trains were some of the cars had a two tone grey paint, while Daylight painted heavyweight cars could only be found on the San Joaquin Daylight which was mostly consisting of lightweight streamliner cars. So putting together a two tone grey or Daylight painted SP heavyweight train seems totally incorrect to me. I don´t care so much about which heavyweight car types could be found on the SP or not, but at least a correct and widely used paint scheme would be nice to have. Any ideas why SP dark olive green painted heavyweights are so unpopular as plastic models in HO scale?

2

  1. The Daylight scheme, and the two-tone gray scheme, are both flashier.

  2. Marketing types are not necessarily modelers, nor experts in historical issues.

  3. Many modelers would actually prefer those schemes over the scheme you favor.

But look on the bright side: Paint and decals aren’t that expensive, and they can produce models that are uniquely your own. So the glass is at least half full.

Tom

3

If you do not mind short heavyweights, Athearn made several (baggage, 2 different coaches, diner, sleeper and observation car) in the olive green color. You can find them at train shows and on eBay.

4

I suggest you paint your own as SP had a unique olive that has never been offered RTR.

Dave

5

Recently I made up an SP heavyweight version of the Senator which ran between Oakland and Sacramento as it appreaed in the late '40’s. I used some Athern and Concor coaches with the arched roof ( Harriman ) configuration. I got a set of Southern Pacific Lines gold decals for decoration. I stripped the cars and painted them with a 50/50 mix of Floquil Coach Green and Floquil Roof Brown. That yielded a very satisfactory olive tone. You could also mix in some cellestory roofed coaches if you like as SP ran them too mixed in with the arch roofed cars. I pull the train with an Athern Genesis MT Class 4-8-2 and I’m waiting for another with the skyline caseing configuration. For good operation you may want to rewheel the train with RP-25 wheels and convert to Kaydee couplers. In addition to coaches you might want to include an RPO, a baggage car and an express boxcar or two.