Just received two LIONEL 2532-style vista domes that Christine Braden painted for me and she did a superb job. First, she matched the dark green of the Raymond Loewy two-tone green of the Northern Pacific's "North Coast Limited" that I had applied to a five-car set and PW F-3 train (w/o a dome car) about 20 years ago. This dome project was undertaken because LIONEL finally offered (and I discovered after a decade hiatus from trains) an offset, 15" dome car with the UP anniversary set--the PW 2532's and their successors were all center domed and in my semi-prototype discipline back then I would not use one of those for my NP NCL train.
Not only did Christine do a great job matching the color and masking all of those windows, the also suggested applying a translucent tinted film to the interior of the domes to mimic the prototypes.
In addition to the dark green dome, she also did a red one that I will use in another project--photos on that will come later.
Props to VistaDomeScott are due because it was his detailed photos published on the forum of his beautiful Auto-Train (and its numberous domes) that led me to ask about his painter--Christine Braden. Likewise, the tinted dome windows came from his project as well.
With the dome painted, with matching paint provided by Christine, and with the custom NP NCL decals from LBR on hand, I can now "complete" my NP NCL. I say "complete" because there is one more important project that Christine is helping me with.
So, again, thanks Christine and Scott.
