I traded off some of my larger G scale freight cars at the local shop today, and picked up these two LGB personal cars from their toy train series. I think with a respray they would make nice cars to haul my peat bog workers back and forth to work. But what color should I use to tone these things down and be less toy like? My initial thoughts are GWR cream and brown. Brown bodies and cream roofs. Maroon has been suggested but with the motive power being in GWR green, the maroon might not look quite right. The roofs are the white part of the trim around the top. The curtians are both embossed and printed but should be less noticeable once painted. Only paint I have at the moment is green that is a close match to the steam engine to the left of the cars. Mike

Well, work cars are usually painted with whatever is on hand. They aren’t done up all classy. So maybe a brown, or some other mundane colour.

Or, you could break out the Technicolor paint and really have fun.

Several thoughts of varying significance.

I want to say that somewhere in UK was a steam railway which had green locos and maroon carriages, Great Central comes to mind.

Colors I’ve seen on real personnel cars of similar size include white, light blue, yellow, orange.

Plain oxide red primer could tell a story; the company spent the time and money to apply minimal protection to the material.

The green you have on hand could tell the story; the company spent the time and money to show they care about the material, and to bring a unified appearance, thereby implying they also care about the people using the material.

Work? Government green inside and medium grey outside, they’re just workers.

John

Battleship grey?

To me, color would depend on the story.

Were the cars bought new by your peat bog company or built in their own shops? If so the cars would most likely be done in some simple industrial color or colors. If they were bought second hand by your peat bog company they would more than likely have been left in what ever livery they showed up wearing. The company would probably think there wasn’t much point in prettying up cars for workers to ride in and mess up.

For now, I am going to leave them as they look. I did replace the plastic wheels with really heavy solid plated brass San-Val wheel sets I had laying arounding my drawer of G scale stuff. Working on the back story and revamp plans for the railway right now. Thanks Mike