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Post by harborbelt70 on Jan 20, 2024 9:27:38 GMT
I was hunting around for an original side view theme for this week when, after looking back at what our regular contributors have posted, it dawned on me that colors – indeed a riot of colors - are a very big feature in many of them. Plus, recently I’ve been playing the nursery game of “what color is this?” and “what’s your favorite color?” and chose blue as mine, although train-wise I have more in black, graphite, grime, Daylight reds or Armor Yellow. But I have something blue that is without a doubt the finest passenger train that I have ever had or ever will, and that is my main focus for now.
I’ve posted about the 3rd Rail GM Train of Tomorrow before, but these are new images of the 3rail version: They are partly from a truly excellent resource, the archives of BrassTrains.com, which I know Scott Mann has used in the past. The noticeable color difference in the second set is the result of my using flash. The ‘true blue’ of the set, and the scale proportions of the dome cars, is best shown in this overhead shot: The 3rd Rail T of T is close to my heart because when it was made, I had a small part in helping Scott with the color chosen for the GM version based on historical sources I had. Although this is more of a front end shot I have a print of this photo from nearly 80 years ago:  The best side view/representation of a complete passenger train I have ever seen is this drawing from the brochure issued on the T of T’s first run, which I also have:
All that said, and despite its considerable detail, the 3rd rail E7 is not in fact my favorite diesel (the horizontal drive in it is problematic); a different blue/green one is, the GE Evo ES44AC made by Lionel as part of its VL “Green Fleet”. The MTH car behind this one is one of the better special interest cars MTH has produced although it’s only an RPO colored and lettered to match the engine’s scheme:
Incidentally, the un-ironed fabric in the photo was my lame attempt to mimic af3020’s signature blue photo background and my better half was very bemused by my trying to use it. I said I could iron out any wrinkles in the photo editing software - about which she was highly skeptical, to say the least.
Finally, I give advance warning that one week soon I am going to go completely off the rails or off-piste as some say to have a rant about a subject of which side views are a part and not just a pretext; and (a) no, it isn’t about misspelling names/words as that subject’s been done to death and (b) this will be about something more fundamental. Not the least reason is that there have been some very interesting non-O scale models pictured here.
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Post by healey36 on Jan 20, 2024 16:48:38 GMT
Well, I don't have much to offer this week other than this photo from a press-clipping that shows GM's Train of Tomorrow rolling into the B&O's Queen City Station Hotel in Cumberland, Maryland, 1947 or 1948-ish...not sure:  I got the clipping from one of my FSC instructors, Harry Stegmaier, an unrepentant railroad buff who spent summers tearing around the country in his MG Midget filming trains that were up for discontinuance. I don't recall talking to him specifically about GM's ToT, but we talked a lot about the Queen City Station/Hotel that was torn down in 1974, my freshman year at Frostburg. He was encyclopedic in his knowledge of regional railroad topics, and went on to write numerous titles. He was a hoot. |
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Post by harborbelt70 on Jan 20, 2024 17:04:11 GMT
Thanks, that's fine contribution and I have never seen that photo before. There was an issue when the 3rd Rail T of T was made over exactly what color the prototype was and the author of the lone book on the train insisted that it was a GM automotive blue-green. Color photos from the period have faded but with rare exceptions show a dark blue hue, which I think is consistent with your photo.
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Post by af3020 on Jan 20, 2024 17:06:24 GMT
Color it is...and as all good photographers/painters/general artists know the RGB (red, green blue) color model is an additive color model in which the three primary colors are added together in various ways to produce a broad range of color. So, let's just add some red, green, and blue to this issue of Side Shot Saturday and see what we get. Red - Ives  Green - Marx  ...and blue - American Flyer Nationwide Lines  by the way harborbelt70 my "signature blue photo background" is, in fact a large piece of blue fabric.  The way you keep it wrinkle free is to do a one-time ironing, carefully fold over the fabric lengthwise and then roll it up on one of those long mailing tubes used for shipping large posters. When needed, you unroll it, carefully unfold, and drape it across a scaffold made of whatever is handy. Because the crease is in the center it is easily hidden by a section of track and the overall impression is one of a relatively seamless background |
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Post by healey36 on Jan 20, 2024 17:30:36 GMT
Beautiful sets, af. Haven't seen that Seaboard caboose by Marx before; it's very nice.
Don Carver has had my grandfather's Flyer 1096 and my daughter's Lionel 1684 for some repairs for nearly a year...I need to give him a call and find out if they have crept up the backlog pile yet (he did warn me that the backlog was nearing a year out when I dropped it off last March).
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Post by david1 on Jan 20, 2024 18:57:22 GMT
Thanks, that's fine contribution and I have never seen that photo before. There was an issue when the 3rd Rail T of T was made over exactly what color the prototype was and the author of the lone book on the train insisted that it was a GM automotive blue-green. Color photos from the period have faded but with rare exceptions show a dark blue hue, which I think is consistent with your photo. I can always depend on you and others to wow me with items I didn't know much about. The pictures are amazing and well done. Thanks guys. Dave
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Post by healey36 on Jan 20, 2024 19:05:47 GMT
There was an issue when the 3rd Rail T of T was made over exactly what color the prototype was... What...someone thought the model's color was wrong? Unbelievable 
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Post by harborbelt70 on Jan 20, 2024 21:42:36 GMT
There was an issue when the 3rd Rail T of T was made over exactly what color the prototype was... What...someone thought the model's color was wrong? Unbelievable
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Post by atsda on Jan 23, 2024 3:28:52 GMT
healey36, AF3020, good posts - thanks. Alfred
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Post by atsda on Jan 23, 2024 3:30:07 GMT
harborbelt70, great historical and personal background. Looking forward to the next post. Alfred
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The way you keep it wrinkle free is to do a one-time ironing, carefully fold over the fabric lengthwise and then roll it up on one of those long mailing tubes used for shipping large posters. When needed, you unroll it, carefully unfold, and drape it across a scaffold made of whatever is handy. Because the crease is in the center it is easily hidden by a section of track and the overall impression is one of a relatively seamless background
