Latest Legacy Ten Wheelers

From what I've seen, your spidey sense may not be wrong. Theres video of the NKP on youtube and its the same color.

I've also seen that light grey color on most if not all of the recently delivered Northerns.

Its mind boggling really. For 15 or so years Lionel used pretty much the same dark graphite for the smokebox.

What happened?

Heres a snapshot of locos I have. Spanning from the 2002 j3a, on the far left, to the 2015 heavy Mike on the right.

The heavy Mike is a "tad" lighter, but is still perfectly acceptable IMO.

Oh and I also used to own one of the previous run Legacy F12e's . It was also the same color.

( Solid runner, I should have kept it)

I’m a little curious if this’ll be a thing on the other recent LEGACY steamers will have this color gray, too.

As far as I remember, this color thing didn’t really become an issue until 2018 with the silver smoke box 2-8-0’s.

I think though the new 2020 light Mike’s have the more accurate graphite gray, or at least the Southern 4501 does, but don’t quote me on that.

I was actually considering the Black custom run B&O that is shown above but passed on it for precisely that reason. My backup plan is to pick up the NYC version if they didn't mess it up with the awful primer color. I'm anxiously awaiting an image of the NYC so I can pull the trigger. What a shame if they mucked it up and I have to pass on that one too. I know Muffins has some or had some. He's usually great about posting actual product photos so hopefully we will know something soon. I passed on the H10 also for the same reason. Looks really bad IMO, I don't really care if it's prototypical or not.

BTW, nice lineup RickO!

If you can live without whistle steam, Lionel has already made two NYC Legacy ten wheelers plus a TMCC version.

Pete

Great line up Rick.

It is unfortunate that they seem to be using way too much light gray. Most engines seem to have changed to sparkle light gray which sort of reminds me of battleships. As a kid I built a bunch without painting a drop of paint on most save the tan decks. That changed when I got the giant Missouri and used a ton of paint to get the color scheme right. Besides three different grays, there was steel, bronze, silver and a few others. Yeah, the waterline, and the bottom red too(forgot those).

If these steam engines had the gritty graphite colors, they should on the models. Why get the spray paint can of light gray out and slap that on the engine where it don't belong? Ugh!

I just unboxed my Rutland. Mind you I have 3 Northern Pacifics that have re lettered into Rutlands. Everyone is dead on about the smokebox color being what looks like light gray primer. Actually the Rutland featured a very dark smokebox. The original dark gray I would still paint over. The class lights now feature clear lenses. I’m not a fan of glowing LED’s on steamers. If the green can be shut off with the remote fine. If not. They will be unplugged like the majority of my steamers.

Well they got the black right. When I ordered it. I kind of new the lettering would be white. That’s how the Mogul was. The Rutland’s lettering was more of a silver or aluminum. My other 10 wheelers are lettered with Highball Graphics decals.  They deal with discriminating modelers and I’m sure they got it right. Lionel seems to have got the font right. It’s just not stretched out enough. I really didn’t want to do a re letter job. I was hoping weathering might fix it. I run these a lot as doubleheads so it’s going to stand out from the others. At some point when it’s out of warranty I’ll re do it. I have a re done NP that’s already numbered 79. I may leave that as is. Switch out the headlights and renumber the new one.

I only ran it a few feet. The start up sounds are new. If your into smoke. It’s a good one and plenty comes out the whistle. A few issues cosmetically if your into the prototype. For the money. Pretty reasonable with it’s features considering what other engines are selling for.

What got my curiosity was the Alco builders plate. My NP’s are Baldwins. The Alco is correct for the Rutland. Not sure of the other models in this run as far as builders plates. Do these vary from one run to another. Seeing the indent in the shell houses the builder plate they are not interchangeable.

I just put my NYC 1232 on the track and programed it in. The classification lights came on white and I can't seem to change them to green. I hit the AUX2 button and held it and no lighting menu came up. Am I doing something wrong?

How's the smokebox Skip?

@Randy_B posted:

How's the smokebox Skip?

Not really liking the gray.  Can't imagine who or what is making these horrible paint decisions. Here's the new one.

And here's the older one which I like much better.

SMH

@NYC Fan posted:

Not really liking the gray.  Can't imagine who or what is making these horrible paint decisions.

Seems like when MR left, he took the graphite smokebox paint code with him....

@RickO posted:

Seems like when MR left, he took the graphite smokebox paint code with him....

They got it right on the 1297 4-6-6T not too long ago. I really gripes me when, like with the VIsion Niagara, you open up the box thinking it's going to look like the catalog photo and instead of the joy you expected, you're first thought is, "I'd like to get this thing repainted."

Come on Lionel, fix that grey paint.   First thing I did with my J3 is send to Harry to weather it get rid of that light grey on the smoke box.  Glad these are coming in good working order though.

It looks like you can get the green class light housings from Lionel if you want them but that doesn't fix the paint. I guess I will try to pick up a 1258 - at least you have that one already. Thanks for the info. Do the lights look like your other steamers once they are on now? I assume the photo is from before you reset them to default.

That is just sad. I was all excited to get my 972 until I saw this post.

Despite the wrong color one the smokeboxes, does anyone have the Reading & Northern version. I'm sure that one may not have this issue with the smokebox color since it's black.

@NYC Fan posted:

Not really liking the gray.  Can't imagine who or what is making these horrible paint decisions. Here's the new one.

And here's the older one which I like much better.

SMH

Yeah, like they stopped at the first coat. I know some paints(room paint) always comes out lighter the first coat, so you need a few, but this is just downright ridiculous. Almost like they didn't mix up the paint. Really makes me sad.

I saw the NKP ten wheeler in the flesh yesterday. It’s definitely battleship gray. Ugh. It sticks out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of every other Legacy (or Premier) steamer (like Rick’s awesome lineup above). The shame is Lionel otherwise did a fantastic job with it - Steve put a ton of effort in his design and it is awesome with all the whitewalls and so forth from the prototype photo.

It’s maddening this continues to go on.  It also seems to be some releases and not others. If you flip through Mr. Muffins latest email, the ten wheelers and their auto primer paint are at the top, yet scroll down and Steve has other Legacy stuff for sale with the perfect graphite paint. It really is a roll of the dice.

My guess is Harry is building a paint mask for the ten wheelers.....

This does raise an interesting thought: are we here on the forum just a small vocal minority about these constant paint screwups and, for the most part, everyone else just shrugs and keeps buying without even lodging a complaint?  It seems like at some point if enough people were pizzzzed, it would get fixed. I refuse to believe this is hard to fix - they apparently just don’t want to or don’t feel the need to.

To the extent anyone is taking a poll, I would certainly vote to take the time used to make 2 or 3 of the Facebook shows and direct it toward fixing paint colors.

I know its annoying to have to consider a repaint but it would not be that difficult on this engine. Headlight and class lights come off. You only have mask off the grab rails, builders plates, and rest of the body. I use liquid masker on the small parts.

Pete

It must have something to do with the Mr. Muffin's Trains exclusive version. That is what the artwork for that one called for, and I think that's what confused the factory on the smokebox color.