C628's in Maroon

Did LV ever have C628's in maroon? Today I was at the local hobby shop and there was O-scale C628s (MTH?) in LV traditional maroon with black outs over the logo and Conrail "CR" markings stenciled on - they were pretty neato models, but I never knew LV to have 628's in anything other than snowbird look.

Yeah, there were some in Cornell Red as well as at least one Tuscan unit.

Only three Lehigh Valley Railroad Alco C628 locomotives were not repainted from the black and white scheme: 626, 632 and 636.

Railpictures.net has a couple of shots of C628s in Cornell Red.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=173756
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=173757

thanks - I've never seen cornell 628's before. Think of those two pics with "bandit" treatment for Conrail, and that's the O-scale model I saw. If I had a random $300 laying around, I might have bought the set...

Tad -

Here is a thread (tough it may be tough to read in spots) regarding the Tuscan C-328's on Railfan.net -
http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?bo ... 1132210000

CF

CF, that one guy on the "other" forum who swears the Valley NEVER had a Tuscan loco, is why I don't visit there. The amount of LIES posted there, make it hard to learn anything from a visit. Here's some pics, of Cornell, and Tuscan, on same locos/models, and the difference is very real.

NEW Tuscan paint:


Cornell red, on the flanks of the freshly painted C-628, # 630, April 1975


NEW Cornell paint:


Dirty Tuscan paint:


Dirty Cornell paint:


Tuscan 420 in used paint:


Cornell used paint, on a 420:



The guy who swears Tuscan didn't exist, is living in a fantasy world. While it could be said that "chemically" speaking, Tuscan is a derivative of red, it's plain to see it's a different color. The Valley well documented it's foray into the world of Tuscan, and Jade Green. There's no doubt about it. The F's and the RS's are also proof, along with the 200, of use of Tuscan. I do have a photo in my collection of an Alco PA, in Tuscan, as well, the 608! Why it's more fun here, where the BS isn't allowed to pass, as fact. Keep on "Flyin' the Flag"............

For Tadman, I would say probably not. I will guess there were no Maroon C'628's. There was Cornell red, and there was Tuscan, But I haven't seen a photo of a Maroon C-628 before. I have a picture of a Maroon hack, and a Baldwin with a very brief coating of Maroon, but not a C-628. Not to say it didn't happen, but I have over 200 photos/slides of the C-628's, with every unit being in my collection, with every paint scheme they ever wore, but I see nothing Maroon. Some older photos and slides look kind of like Maroon, but when you see other things in the pic, like green sky and grey people, you must believe the colors have shifted, or were wrong, from the first processing. Some model manufacturers, have painted stuff Maroon, but it's wrong. (how hard is it to duplicate Cornell red? It's available from Dupont as well as Sherman Williams, as automotive/railroad paint. If you took every type of model paint, claiming to be Cornell Red, you would see none of them are the same, and most of them are wrong, for new paint, although, at some point in time, the locos weathered, faded and/or darkened enough, where each offering "could" be right, for a specific loco, in a specific time frame) Harder still, was the well documented, and published fact, that the Valley was very "economical" in it's paint department, mixing and matching colors in-house, as the need to paint forced them to add any colors available, to "stretch" a batch of paint. This means a loco painted in May 1973 could, and probably would, be a different shade of Red, than the same model loco, painted in August. The documentation of such colors as green, blue and even white added to Cornell Red, to make a batch large enough to paint a loco, is seen in Carl Steckler Jr's book "The Lehigh Valley Diesel Paint Roster". The comments came from the Sayre paintshop crew themselves. So, while Dupont might have the "perfect" formulation for Cornell Red, it might in fact have been rarely, if ever, applied to a Valley unit, without being "blended" before being sprayed. As we Valley modelers know, from experience, figure out which loco you want to model, what year you are modelling, and what month you are trying to capture. The differences were just that great, and the locos went through "color changes" constantly, as red paint is probably the hardest color, to keep as a "true" color, due to oxidation, chalking and/or fading. Jst some thoughts. Regards.....

G-A -

Hence the disclaimer....And that guy is long gone, I saw to that personally.

CF

FWIW, I just got my latest package, from "Upstate", which contains a dozen Alco S-2's. Could use ANY Pre-War shots, from you CF, especially roof shots, if you have any...........

Tuscan paint was leftover PRR hand-me-downs, PRR used it on their passenegr engines, and with fewer and fewer of those into the 60's didn't need it - so it went to the LV. Pretty much any repaint from 1962 to 1971 got some variation of Tuscan red wth one yellow stripe and roman lettering. I think the last Tuscan repaints were the two units that got the 4-foot yellow band all around. If someone's denying that they used this color, they must be color-blind.

Which is possible, the 630 and 406 tuscan is darker than on some other locos even when weathered. Maybe they didn't have enough of it and cut in a couple gallons of red.

I didn't realize one PA got the tuscan, would love to see a photo of that.

The GP38AC brought the bright red back and after that as others were repainted they standardized on a bright red as the main color. As mentioned only 3 C628s and 2 C420s never got the repaint. The 630, the one Tuscan C628, actually got repainted a second time to bright red with a nose diamond, in '74.


The color-blind guy is banned from that other place, and the threads are pretty well cleaned up.

As already mentioned, they'd mix in other colors to stretch the paint. I wouldn't be surprised if they bought the red from whoever was cheapest at the time. Wouldn't be surpised if they found a deal on mis-mixed or leftover paint, buy that and add in a gallon here and there to the red.

I've seen photos for sale on eBay showing CR patch C628s and the paint does look very maroon on some of them. Probably a combination of soot and oil covering them by that point. My dad has an 8mm movie he shot around '81 near Enola and the ex-LV GP38AC that we happened to catch looks more tuscan on that film.

I'd bet you'll find the units that went to the more maroon color over time had blue mixed in to stretch out the batch.

And, one more thing, depending on the lighting conditions and your perspective even the same paint can look different to two different people. Painting models I came to the conclusion to just paint them a red I was happy with the appearance of and let it be.



Talking about the model paint variations, I found that Scale-Coat Cornell Red is a dead on match for Plasti-Coat Auto Body Shop Paint maroon (!) which I got in a big spray can in K-mart at the time for $5 - nowadays the little bottles cost close to that. I literally sprayed half of a body shell painted with the Scale-Coat and couldn't see any difference in the Plasti-Coat paint. They may call it Cornell Red, but it ain't right.

G-A:

Reference your mention of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Alco PA 608 slide in your collection showing the unit in a tuscan color: I do not doubt your word, mind you, but all the PA1 units were delivered to the LVRR in cornell red paint and, according to Steckler, none were ever repainted.

Have three Al Withiam slides of the LVRR PA units. One shows the 608 & 607 brand new at Sayre in 1948. Both units are plainly painted the same cornell red color. The other two slides are dated 30 May 1950 and show train no. 9 at Ithaca, NY with the 608 and a sister unit. Again, both units are in the same cornell red. Maybe Mr. Steckler missed something and 608 was repainted tuscan somewhere along the line? The 608, according to Extra 2200 South was rebuilt in kind in 09-56. However, all the other PAs were also rebuilt 1955-1958 with the possible exception of the 612 & 613. Beats me.

I believe this is a photo of the "Tuscan PA"



however..although 608 has clearly been repainted, the red doesnt really look any different than the color worn by her sister unit behind her.
actually, its identical.

perhaps it appears different because we arent used to seeing a PA without its stripes..
and the color reproduction is quite dull and faded in that photo, making the red look "browner" than it probably was in reality.

so we have clear evidence for a LV PA repaint..but im not convinced it was repainted in Tuscan...not based on that one photo anyway.

And yes, all the PAs originally wore identical, Cornell Red paint,

We know 608 was repainted.

And 613 also got a new coat of paint, after some minor wreck damage.
the new paint on 613 looked nearly identical to the original paint..
repainted in Cornell Red.
there are pics of the "before and after" of 613 in one of these threads around here somewhere ..

Scot

TB Diamond wrote:G-A:

Reference your mention of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Alco PA 608 slide in your collection showing the unit in a tuscan color: I do not doubt your word, mind you, but all the PA1 units were delivered to the LVRR in cornell red paint and, according to Steckler, none were ever repainted.

Have three Al Withiam slides of the LVRR PA units. One shows the 608 & 607 brand new at Sayre in 1948. Both units are plainly painted the same cornell red color. The other two slides are dated 30 May 1950 and show train no. 9 at Ithaca, NY with the 608 and a sister unit. Again, both units are in the same cornell red. Maybe Mr. Steckler missed something and 608 was repainted tuscan somewhere along the line? The 608, according to Extra 2200 South was rebuilt in kind in 09-56. However, all the other PAs were also rebuilt 1955-1958 with the possible exception of the 612 & 613. Beats me.

I sent Carl 2 photos, of a definitely repainted 608. One appears above this very post, the other is a shot of the nose, coupled to a RS-2 and the RS definitely has a Cornell red paint job, and the PA is definitely "brown" but perhaps a shade lighter, than "true" Tuscan. (if there is such a color) Huge problem with old film, and seeing shots of a single loco, from various days within the same month, make you wonder how a loco got repainted 6 times in a month. Some color shifting, in the prints, or perhaps on the original film, and it's processing, make the job "Biblical", in trying to obtain a correctly painted roster. I'M down to finding the last of the SC/SW/NW series of locos, and the handfull of oddball endcab, and boxcab stuff, from the late 20's, early 30's. I do have every other diesel, from the Valley, at this time. I've got my paint booth up and running, and I've been collecting paint, and decals, like a person possesed. Once I get a decent digital camera, the stuff will be going to the LVRR modeler site, hopefully for inclusion of what I am trying to make as the "all time diesel roster, in HO scale" of a Class 1 railroad. Then, I will probably start selling them off, to finance the "all time steel caboose roster" of the Valley.........

Scot & G-A:

Thank you very much for the clarification/correction. I will make notes to insert in my copy of Mr. Steckler's book. Great information.

Thanks for some fantastic info, guys. I used the term Maroon as a non-scientific term meaning a darker reddish shade between MKT Texas Special Bright Red and ACL purple (translation: I don't know much about LVRR and I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to their fleet...)

Also, an observation based on that pic of PA #608: I've never seen a pic of a LVRR passenger train moving slowly. I know their passenger trains ended early, but they must have known how to run 'em.