Model Train Journal

Happy Friday!!!

Santa came early for me this week Picked up a restored 2332 & a trio of LTI Madison cars. That original horn on the 2332 leaves a lot to be desired. Even w/ the single motor, this engine has some pep.











681 w/ the 2671W tender leading freight & passenger consists through town




628 NP 44 ton switcher leading 1956 set 1545


616 Santa Fe NW2 working the factory




NS SD40-2 3357 (ex CR 6409) leads a power move into South Yard in Roanoke, VA



NS SD60M 6798 (ex CR 5560) leading 188 through Northfork, WV on the Pokey


NS SD40E 6325 (ex CR SD50 6715) shoves 17G under the PRR signals at Latrobe, PA


NCDOT/Amtrak F59PHI 1755 brings up the rear of Raleigh bound Amtrak 76 as it heads through Lexington, NC

christopher2035 wrote:Happy Friday!!!
681 w/ the 2671W tender leading freight & passenger consists through town

But that bus!!!!!

Looks like you weathered the trucks a bit, Christopher, or is that just an aberration caused by some weird camera filter or photo-enhancement?



Whichever, it looks sharp. Has me thinking about my Williams version. Speaking of which, can the original's horn be any more sorrowful than TrueBlast II?

Healey

It's the photo filter on the camera. I wouldn't weather anything postwar

The horn sounds way worse than a TBII! It looks like this -


IDK how to describe the sound, but it makes the standard Lionel PW horn sound like gold

The original PW bicycle horn is actually pretty close to what a GG1 would have sounded like. A bit high pitched (more of a "blaaat") but you can try to tweak it down to get closer to a "honnnnk".

The G's horn was a single chime Leslie A-200. Sounds kind of like a sick goose. It was never "melodic" like the three and five chime horns used on the passenger engines of the time.

In the photo 2332 looks very green. I am used to a much darker color for GG1s. My curiosity is peaked,

1. Christopher, does it look medium green to the eye?
2. Does everyone reading this see the same thing I do?

Number two is a bit of a stupid question... hardly anyone sees Brunswick Green the way I do. I see it as dark green, most of the MTJ readers report Brunswick Green looks black.

In the image below I see medium green on the left, dark green on the right.


I think it would be worth a trip to Strasburg just to see a GG1 in person.

Wayne, you are a Photoshop jockey!

You can also see a GG-1 under the passenger canopy in Harrisburg, along with an N6b. I think the Railroad Museum of PA has 3 of them.

George

DGLE (dark green locomotive enamel) is mostly black. It's there to begin with but the green tint becomes more pronounced as the finish is exposed to the elements. Sort of the way a copper roof turns blackish brown and then gets it's green patina over years of exposure. Black/Brown is from initial oxidation, green from sulfates. Steam engines burning a lot of high sulfur coal turned green a lot faster.

When we would visit my grandfather's office at the Farley building I'd usually be allowed to go watch the trains shuttling into and out of Penn station at the opening over by Ninth Ave. An outbound G that had been through the wash racks was a shiny almost black with a tinge of green to it. Some of the others had more of the green tint while a lot just looked filthy. The EP-5's all looked filthy, you could barely see the McGinnis paint scheme through the grime.

I don't know of anyone besides PRR using DGLE. Brunswick Green is not an official PRR color but it is referenced in their internal documentation. There is a chance that they were referring to the DuPont DGLE (official color) that was formulated at their plant in Brunswick NJ.

Thank you for the color change information on Brunswick Green Chuck.
Thank you for pointing out it might be Brunswick, NJ green instead of Braunschweig, Germany green.
Models often are painted a lighter color so they look right under room lighting.
Not everyone sees color the same. The GG1 might look darker to other MTJ readers than it does to me.
Lionel might have chosen a lighter green so customers would not think it looked black.
Brunswick Green does not always have to be almost black when new. Brunswick green was the color for passenger locomotives of British Railways. There were three shades of these colors, British Standard BS381C – 225, BS381C – 226, and BS381C – 227.

I believe the PRR Technical & Historical Society went through a huge effort a few years ago to create accurate paint chips. And yes, DGLE was quite a problem.

George

There are chips available but modern formulations may not produce the desired effects. The original paint reacted to the air around it, weathering from freshly dried almost black to a very dark gray green. This isn't quite as bad as NYC "Century" green that started fading before it was dry but it's why there is so much controversy. The G's didn't face a constant barrage of high sulfur smoke the way the steam engines did but they still reacted and slowly "greened" over time.

Not sure how many people around would have seen a freshly painted or recently washed nearly new painted loco to compare. Most of what we use for references are old photo's that may not have been that accurate to begin with or have faded themselves. Have seen multiple shades of the real thing as a child I can understand the confusion. I NEVER saw one that looked shiny and almost black.

webenda wrote:In the image below I see medium green on the left, dark green on the right.

I suspect part of this is due to the gloss of the paint. I think it's glossier than Lionel's original finish.

Roy wrote:

webenda wrote:In the image below I see medium green on the left, dark green on the right.

I suspect part of this is due to the gloss of the paint. I think it's glossier than Lionel's original finish.

From what George and Chuck added to this conversation, I have come to believe both Lionel's semi-gloss and the high gloss of Christopher's model are correct. In another discussion on Pennsylvania's DGLE, it was revealed that the color was not always the same from one batch to the next.

I notice Christopher has not commented. In my imagination, he is thinking, "It is just a toy guys. If I like the color that is all that matters." At least that was my first thought when Robert commented concerning my coal load on another thread, "It sits too high." Just-a-toy or not, I love discussions on paint color. A lot of old thoughts get repeated but ever once in a while I learn something new, as was the case this time around.

How many of you already know the following trivia about 4935?

When Amtrak restored 4935 Raymond Loewy was honorary chairman of the project.

When refurbishment was finished a private group, the Friends of the GG1 Committee (F.O.G.G.), issued an $8,712 check to Amtrak for the painting, while Amtrak absorbed the repair costs.

The 4935 was tested near Perryville on May 12 and on May 15, 1977, the 4935 was returned to revenue service.

The locomotive made its last revenue run on October 10, 1980, pulling a passenger train. It was discovered that $80,000 in repairs were needed. On March 20, 1981, the locomotive was sold for $5,000 to F.O.G.G. member Russell Wilcox, who then donated it to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylva ... lroad_4935

Having grown up in western Pa., I clearly remember (as a kid) seeing Alco and GP9s that looked completely black. We're talkin' mid-fifties. At the same time, the F models that would sit by my aunts home while switching in and out of the Freeport Brick Co., clearly were not black. Being 100 % colorblind, red/green defective, they sure'n hell looked green or brown to me, but remember, they would have been 15 to 17 years old. My aunt lived on the Butler Branch, just up the Buffalo Creek from Butler Jct below Freeport.

My uncle, a @50 year employee of the PRR who lived 150' from the St. Louis main and the branch down the Ohio River and to a roundhouse and yards
said that switch engines were painted black and road engines were DGLE, both steam and diesel. I thought it was always hard to tell especially on
steam locos. I never saw the red oxide cab roofs and tender decks except on display or special use locos.
I don't think the DGLE question will ever be fully resolved.