How to create a realistic Amtrak “Rainbow Train”


B

BurlingtonNorthern

New Member
When Amtrak was first formed in 1971 they lacked the operating capital necessary to repaint the widely varied fleet of passenger equipment they inherited. Thus, from 1971 to about 1980, Amtrak operated “rainbow trains” consisting of a mix of inherited equipment in its original paint scheme (most of which still had its original lettering and logos) and a small smattering of Amtrak equipment.

I’m thinking about building the Empire Builder which I have photographed being pulled by a forward facing BN E8A, GN sky blue FB, an orange GN FB, a rear facing BN F7A, a forward facing CB&Q FA, and a Northern Pacific FB in that order. The train itself, which is captured in several photos consists of nothing less then a BN baggage car, GN blue baggage car, coaches lettered for BN, GN (orange), GN (blue), UP, NP, Amtrak, an Amtrak dome car, and a GN orange beaver tail.

Unfortunately, every time someone buts together a mixed passenger train (usually because they don’t have enough cars to create a single uniform train) they end up looking kind of silly.

By uniformly weathering non-uniform passenger cars would they look more realistic running together???

Here are some pictures of Amtrak "Rainbow Trains" running on BN lines:

http://www.umcycling.com/am7bn338mixdfld773w.jpg

http://www.umcycling.com/am7gnunits773w.jpg

http://www.umcycling.com/gndomesrainboww.jpg

http://www.umcycling.com/amtjwr372w.jpg

http://www.umcycling.com/am7rainb773w.jpg
 
I've thought about a rainbow train based on this NRHS Convention train that came through on my prototype a few years back:

DSCF2050.sized.jpg


DSCF2062.sized.jpg


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moz-screenshot.jpg
 
BN, what you are proposing sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It was well over three years before Amtrak started to get all the inherited equipment repainted and, during that time, seeing these rainbow trains was very common. Maybe to someone who wasn't around and railfanning from 1971 to about 1974, your train might look odd but it's totally realistic. I can remember seeing former UP passenger trains in Pomona CA made up of almost solid foreign road cars.

Jeff, nice train, especially with that shiny NKP RS-3 on the head end. :)
 
Seems like you should weather them different and some not much at all to be realistic. In one of your pics thare are two matching cars (must have been and accident) one weathered much more than the other.

The problem is you want it to look neat going by too.
You're going to have to explain that train to EVERYONE that sees it on your track.
 
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