Prototype paint: Walthers N scale pulpwood flat in MEC green.

[mecgp7]

Probably only of interest to Maine Central modelers. Years ago, Walthers released an N scale Sieco pulpwood flat in MEC pine green. At the time, many MEC purists questioned whether or not they were ever really painted in green. I had never seen a colored pic in all my years of following the road. I stumbled upon the following photo on eBay which shows the mystery paint scheme in green. Not big news for most, but opens the door for prototypical MEC modelers to add to the fleet.
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[wazzou]

Wrong bulkheads. 

[coosvalley]

>>>the only part that represents the prototype is the length, otherwise the car is a foob, but it is a reasonable stand in..

Not all of them were painted green, but I found this photo some time ago, showing a different one in green:




But to me this is the holy grail, a good photo of a green Paul Bunyan car:(available from N scale Kits for those who don't know)

[PGE_Modeller]

Wrong bulkheads. 

Side sills are wrong as well!

Cheers,

[prbharris]

But to me this is the holy grail, a good photo of a green Paul Bunyan car:(available from N scale Kits for those who don't know)

...and still available www.nscalekits.com

When Alan Curtis and I designed these cars we had a real wealth of material from advisors across New England including 17 detailed photos of the Magor cars. Decals for the car in MEC and BAR paint schemes are also available.

Peter

Peter Harris
N Scale Kits
www.nscalekits.com

[coosvalley]

Decals for the car in MEC and BAR paint schemes are also available.

Yea, about that

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44630.0

These kits are excellent. The ONLY difference I could find from the prototype was this area is see through, and it's modeled as a plate with tread, you can see the sun shining through here:

 


Sometime in the recent past, these photos were added to the Fallen Flags site, they're really good detail shots:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mec/mec1560o31.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mec/mec1582o31.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mec/mec1588o28.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mec/mec1588o29.jpg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mec/mec1588o30.jpg


>>and here is how mine came out..

[prbharris]

Yea, about that

The decals referred to are not the N Scale Kits ones. The N Scale Kits decals are not Alps printed - although some of the registration is not as good as we had hoped. We have had some help getting this right - but now have a decal paper supplier issue!

These kits are excellent.

Thank you - you have done a great job there.

url=https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=44630.0]The ONLY difference I could find from the prototype was this area is see through, and it's modeled as a plate with tread, you can see the sun shining through here:
 

Wow - I missed that - apologies for missing it. We did not have any drawingss and really did think that it was a tread board not an open grid from the data we had!

Peter

Peter Harris
N Scale Kits
www.nscalekits.com

[nscalbitz]

Yea, about that

... >>and here is how mine came out..

And again the difference between wanting to operate/ run trains and modelling elitism.
Stand-in models not otherwise available are wanted by runners. Most of us accept this as a fact of life.

Good on you Peter for sharing data and updating commentary.
One group would have it that your 'inaccurate-now proven' model should be downrated.

As has been pointed out by historians/ researcher-modellers etc., colour doesn't scale. So without the bright/ sunlit exposure, the painted models look far too dark a shade, even if empirically and prototypically correct as built, for all intents may look 'just' black in a passing freight.
davew

[coosvalley]

The decals referred to are not the N Scale Kits ones. The N Scale Kits decals are not Alps printed - although some of the registration is not as good as we had hoped. We have had some help getting this right - but now have a decal paper supplier issue!

So are you saying N scale its has decals available for these too?..If so , can you share a link?

Wow - I missed that - apologies for missing it. We did not have any drawingss and really did think that it was tread from the data we had!

Ha, no apology is necessary!..The only reason I even noticed was because of the photo I shared had the sun just right,without that photo I wouldn't have known either. It's a small detail, and since the rest of the car is so well done, even the most picky modeler should be able to live with the minor difference.

And again the difference between wanting to operate/ run trains and modelling elitism.
Stand-in models not otherwise available are wanted by runners. Most of us accept this as a fact of life.

Good on you Peter for sharing data and updating commentary.
One group would have it that your 'inaccurate-now proven' model should be downrated.

As has been pointed out by historians/ researcher-modellers etc., colour doesn't scale. So without the bright/ sunlit exposure, the painted models look far too dark a shade, even if empirically and prototypically correct as built, for all intents may look 'just' black in a passing freight.
davew

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, but just to clarify, there cars were black when new. Very few were painted green. It's not a "color doesn't scale" problem, it's that so few of these were green, probably a result of shopping. The may have eventually wanted to paint them all green, but along came Guilford, and they didn't ever repaint one of these as far as I've seen..

[prbharris]

So are you saying N scale its has decals available for these too?..If so , can you share a link?

Ahh - sorry, a late night lapse of memory. We did design them but the MEC/BAR decals did not get printed as there appeared to be a source already out there, when we released the car. If they are not available, we still have the file! [The picture is the placement only - not the correct fonts as used on our drawing.]

Peter

Peter Harris
N Scale Kits
www.nscalekits.com

[coosvalley]

Ahh - sorry, a late night lapse of memory. We did design them but the MEC/BAR decals did not get printed as there appeared to be a source already out there, when we released the car. If they are not available, we still have the file!

The decals are still available, but I think they are no longer screen printed, and the ones I just bought(2 weeks ago) look like they're  "printed with denim" to quote  ...

Maybe if enough of us ask we can get another run screen printed...




I've shown this before, but  here it is for those who missed it..., so back to the Walthers cars, a simple upgrade to the looks of these cars is to add some end ladders, something Walthers didn't include, but if you can find a BLMA ladder kit, they are easy enough to make. I also added a short length of .008 brass wire, FVM wheels,BLMA coupler platforms,  and body mounted the couplers. These were easy upgrades and make the cars much nicer looking:

[Wardie]

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Some that I have done, and the only three I am doing in green. I have 9 more waiting to be painted black.