Heck of a Catalog for Penn Central Fans

Does Lionel have a specified "complaint" person.  I know MTH does respond to this kind of thing, and does post a list of catalog corrections on their website.  I recall Lionel doing this on occasion in the past, but generally when I contact them about such matters, I never hear a thing back.  I do know Mike Regan pretty well, and he is very responsive, but I really think he is more of a service guy than product development person.  But I'm open to your suggestions...

Neal:

I think you'd be okay with the Atlas flats for the effect of it as those runs were converted to conventional TOFC operation around 1975. When E-units were assigned to the mail trains, as many as six units would be run in multiple.

Bob 

Lionel is producing Penn Central E8's # 4289 & 4325. Here they both are in the flesh. Even accounting for weathering, they sure look black to me.

Bob,

Just found a photo of a mail train such as you describe on page 110 of Penn Central  Vol 3 by Jeremy Plant.  Dust jacket pic will give you an idea of what I was proposing with the PC/PRR E-8's.

As an aside...is the PC round roof box car prototypical?

Very true. I can't remember which Penn Flyer set it is, the conventional (6-30174) or the Lionchief (6-30233), but many promotional pictures show the locomotive being GREEN.

I've got both sets and they're both black as night.

The E-8's are a early winner!

Got an email from Ryan Kunkle, who is the new Project Manager of High-End Locomotive Projects at Lionel:

Nick,

 

Thank you for your questions and comments and for starting the thread of the forum. I’d like to give a little more background, and backup, to our decision on the PC E8s. Mike shared your question with me last night and as the one responsible for pushing the PC roadname and color choice I thought I should add my $.02.

 

First an introduction, my name is Ryan Kunkle and I’m the new Project Manager here at Lionel for high-end steam and diesel projects. If you ever have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop me a line. Prior to coming to Lionel 3 years ago, I spent 15 years at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and I’m currently also President of the Conrail Historical Society. I’ve also been a modeler for thirty years and will gladly admit to being a member of the “rivet counter” club. There is no single modeling topic more controversial than paint color with any railroad. During my time at Strasburg, I think I answered the “Brunswick Green / DGLE / Black” question on an almost weekly basis. And thanks to a lot of time spent up close and personal with the color, I’ve come to appreciate its reaction to light and the challenges it takes to photograph and model it.

 

From my own experience, unless DGLE is seen in just the right sunlight, at just the right angle, on a nearly cloudless day, it appears black. This was never more evident than when we would move one of the PRR locomotives out of the Museum for work or when rearranging the hall. Perhaps the most clear of these were the H6 and GG-1 4935. I have photographed these multiple times inside and out – only once was I ever actually able to capture the “green.” Until the new skylights were put in the east end of the building, everything appeared black. It wasn’t until after those renovations on a return trip to the museum, when the sun was perfect, the skylights spotless and the locomotive having been just waxed, that I saw the green tint to GP-9 7006. It’s even harder to capture on film than it is with your eyes. Indeed the best way to capture it under the “ideal” conditions is to shoot at a tight angle and backlit. This is of course not a typical way to shoot a locomotive, even for an official portrait.

 

OK, so DGLE photographs as black on almost all occasions, that’s nothing new, but those are all PRR locomotives and I should see the green and it doesn’t answer the PC repaint question. How did the PC paint / repaint its locomotives? I think a sound argument can be made for both DGLE and Black. In fact, I think anyone who argues that NO PC engines were DGLE has about as much credibility as one who argues that NONE weren’t. Clearly NYC shops had no incentive not to use the black paint on hand in the beginning just as former PRR shops would certainly have used up their stock regardless of what the paint charts specified. The irony of the “Red Team” being more likely to paint an engine green is just another fun part of the PC story.  J

 

To my eye, looking at many photos including ones on the OGR Forum and even the “This is clearly black Alco” from the CRHS Forum – there were a lot of DGLE Penn Central locomotives out there. Why do I fall on that side of the argument? Again, there’s my personal experiences with the color. Often the only way to tell the difference is to see the two colors side by side. It helps if the locomotive is relatively clean (a rarity for PC!) And then even with the green looking black you can find a definite line and color shift between the carbody and the pilots, fuel tank or trucks. Will this end the debate? Absolutely not! And that’s ok. While I’m convinced that PC did follow their own paint specs from time to time, I certainly won’t argue that they did all the time. Arguing for a universal color use is about as sound as saying they always followed the same lettering diagrams. So the color debate will go on forever. What really matters here is how will our models look?

 

The color as shown in the catalog is definitely much more green than the final model will be. Why? I knew this controversy was coming. I wanted the consumer to know that we would be painting them DGLE per the specs since the question was going to come from one side or the other. The color specified for the carbody on the PC E8’s, and what you will actually see on the model, is the same that we’ve used on the NS PC Heritage SD70ACe. (Fitting since that is the beast that stirred the pot! It’s also a good example of how this color reacts. We all know it’s DGLE and nothing about it looks off when you see her in service.) I’ve attached a photo of one of our PC Heritage locos for your reference. Like the prototype, I’m confident that, unless you’re running your trains in a garden railroad and happen to get that elusive perfect light, these will look black on your layout. Of course to be a truly accurate PC color, you’re going to need to add plenty of rust, grime and dust – but we’ll leave that call up to you!

 

Thanks again for your question and feel free to reach out any time with more. I hope seeing the actual color sample and knowing the thought process behind all of this makes you more confident in what the final product will be. It is reassuring to see an interest in the PC locomotives – I sincerely hope these do well; I’d love to do more!

 

Sincerely,

 

Ryan Kunkle

Project Manager, High End Locomotives

LIONEL L.L.C

I am satisfied with this response and very grateful to Ryan for taking the time to clear things up.

I may be the lone dissenter in this PC love fest but I just can't see anyone getting into Penn Central. Three fine railroads were merged into a mess. Computers couldn't talk to each other and the company wasn't interested in trains anyway. The biggest company collapse since Enron. Sorry but more keystones and cigar bands rather than mating worms.

I am also impressed and satisfied with Ryan's response.  And I will also wait to see the locomotives when they come out....

Alan

Well Nick, congratulations for your persistence and for obtaining an authoritative answer.  And thank you Ryan for providing such a detailed response.

ehhhhhh..... almost green? This is Amtrak, but was NYC/PC 4049

According to his answer, we already know what the paint finish will look like. Just look up photos of their Norfolk Southern PC Heritage Unit #1073 model, since they're going to be using the same paint:

Since we have Ryan's ear and perhaps since he is monitoring this thread, may I ask the following.  I too am a PC fan, and have many memories of the PC as a teenager.  The manufacturers keep providing us with less common PC units such as the E-8 and the RS-11 of a few years ago.  How about some real bread and butter units such as F-7's, GP-9's, GP-30's, GP-35's, and U-28/30/33-c's all of which Lionel has off the shelf tooling for.

And puhleassse...can you please correct your shades of PC green, Conrail blue, and get rid of the PRR keystone with the compressed letters and oversized serifs?  (Lionel has at least two versions, one of which is correct [N5C caboose in the starter sets], and one which is not [PRR Sharks]).

AND...may I respectfully add to Neal's requests, how about a little more of a matte finish on the diesels...?

Thanks,

Alan

...AND while we're at it, the road numbers posted above is a PRR unit and an NYC unit. Since the last lionel blog was about the road specific details on each of the road names, are there going to be 2 different models in the box? There's a couple differences that are easy to spot just looking at the photos above...

Official EMD paint diagrams for PC specify Brunswick Green (Not DGLE) to the frame and then black for the frame and trucks. That is why the Heritage PC SD70ACe is painted Brunswick. 

The were the repaints Black, Brunswick or DGLE debate has plenty of evidence for a combination of all three with the majority being black.

I understand Lionel's rationale for why they are painting the E-8's DGLE but I'd prefer they would paint them black mainly because most Brunswick or DGLE efforts end up being too green.

I wouldn't count on the road specific details, although Lionel could always surprise us with the final deliveries. The other locomotive I noticed this with is the NYC Heavy Mikado. As it is the concept art simply shows the builder configured locomotive with an NYC scheme. The real locomotive had several NYC-specific details that differ greatly from the builder's configuration.

I'd personally like to see this too, although believe it or not, Penn Central paint jobs actually were somehwat glossy when fresh from the shop. I'm sure this lasted all of about a week on the real thing 

The main spotting feature between a former NYC E unit and and PC unit is the pilot design.  NYC retrofitted all their E units with the "freight" style or more specifically an F unit style pilot while PRR maintained the flat pilot more associated with E units. 

As to former PRR units getting stenciled for PC, that happened extensively, but remember that after 1952 all former PRR E units were painted in Tuscan Red.  What I have found personally is that on older color images colors shift over time and any hint of a green tint is the result of fading colors on the image, not necessarily the locomotive.

Nick and Alan,

i lived along long the main line near Philly during the PC era and I can tell you they are black with not even a hint of green. I saw many PC LOCOMOTIVES and all of them were black.  

Filthy, yes, green, no