Painting over liveries
- Thread starter ward
- Start date
GeeTee
Well-Known Member
It really depends on how many are made. There are a lot of Model Railroader 50th anniversary cars out there , you probably couldn't give one away. And those are 25+ years old. HO really isn't as much a collector market as Lionel . If enough people want that scheme Athearn will be more than happy make more and if they don't someone else will.
If its a locomotive most people would probably just try to acquire an undecorated shell and paint that , especially if its to be painted in a "home" road scheme. Obviously if you paint it Ward's Railroad , it won't be be worth as much as say BNSF or UP colors.
If its a locomotive most people would probably just try to acquire an undecorated shell and paint that , especially if its to be painted in a "home" road scheme. Obviously if you paint it Ward's Railroad , it won't be be worth as much as say BNSF or UP colors.
G'day Ward. I'm in Queensland, run at a club in the northern Brisbane suburbs. Special Liveries do hold value, usually better than standard ones, but like all such things, demand for a particular one varies on the whims of those that want them. I run mostly MRL (Montana Rail Link). a regional railroad (Class 2) as you might suspect, across the State of Montana. They have just painted two in special commemoration liveries. As for repainting yours into a personal one of a not real RR'd (Prototype being the term for real ones) it's value to anyone else will die. It's somewhat different to a non "P" RR'd that's named for a region or as say a connecting imaginary RR'd, between two "P" ones. At one time it was very popular to name your own to suit yourself, but that dropped away when makers taking notice of the demand for models, prototypically accurate as to road names and road numbers with specific details. Personally, I would sell the one you have because it's likely it's livery is one that someone wants and missed out when it was available and get one that's numbered in one of the more common in the road's fleet. Not too many unpainted being provided either these days. Which is something else you may have to get used too. Long gone are the days when makers just churned out a stock line that was Generic. Accuracy to the original is the "go' now and small run numbers to guarantee them selling out i.e. no shelf stock. Hope that helps your decision making.
Just another thought on your dilemma. The large railroads that serve thousands of miles of track over several or many states (Class 1), sell off their old Locos and rolling stock and they are often bought by leasing companies or by short lines (MRL when it first started in '86-7 did this) and at first before they decide on a paint scheme (or never) apply a rectangular patch or patches where the new road's business name, reporting mark*, Loco's road number can be painted onto. (* reporting mark. If you are intending to have a reasonably American based RR'd, then an official reporting mark is required e.g. MRL for Montana Rail Link. These are displayed usually on both sides of the long hood, along with a larger version of the number, the sides of the cab, one above the other and on each end. In your case if you use this suggestion it will just be for fun, just something to add interest, but also, if you decide to use DCC as a control system, the number will become it's DCC address. Here I would advise choosing at least a triple digit number at least. You can have a single digit on the loco, but use a multi, such as 004 in your system. Avoid 3, as it is the default factory reset number for all DCC decoders.
boatwrench
Well-Known Member
Browse E-Bay to check prices of pieces similar to what you have to aid in making a decision. The prices of the George H.W. Bush locomotives remain high. I am a fan of not painting over unique targeted liveries even though that limits interest in potential buyers and the few collectors. There is a reason that you can find just about anything in Pennsylvania or Santa Fe road schemes, they had broad appeal.
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
That depends on the company as some are very strict on their special runs. If the unit was originally marketed as a "limited run collectors edition", they can and will only make the originally specified number (believe it or not Menards is one of these companies). The most recent case is the Rapido Amtrak E8 unit #4316, Originally advertised as a run of 350 units. They were sold out almost before the electronic marketing flyers were fully distributed. They then got a huge appeal from the Amtrak retirement folks that they wanted units for former engineers. Rapido capitulated and decide to make 500 instead, BUT they issued a notice to everyone who had ordered who thought they were getting 1 of 350. They apologized, explained the situation and stated folks could cancel and get their money back if they were not satisfied with the 1 of 500 instead. I think I am #143 of the original 350, but I don't care it is of 500. I'm keeping it. …. I got it to run on my Amtrak "rainbow" train.
And people are making big bucks reselling the Menards special run buildings on ebay. Prices are more than double the original shelf price and going up. I contacted Menards concerning the Morton Salt Works building and they said, "No, they will absolutely never run that product again".
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