MEC Green Paint

The green machine rolls along on the White River Division.

Painting MEC boxcars green

Pierre Oliver contacted me about colours I have used on my MEC boxcars. I presumed he was looking for information about the green colour cars, but it was actually the boxcar red he was interested in. Since I went through the effort of writing about MEC green for Pierre, I decided to post my comments. I took a few photos of my boxcars a few days ago, so one may judge what looks best. 

This MEC boxcar is an example of my early modelling. Even back then I did add some details such as wire grabs, operating levers and wire stirrups. The car was painted and lettered as mentioned below. When I first started weathering my rolling stock in the early 1980's, I just put a coat of Floquil dust over the entire car. Years later when I began chalk weathering this car did get some additional chalk. Oh by the way this is an old Tyco car.

The MEC PS-1 is one of a group of boxcars Peter and I built during the 1990's. The car is pinted with Accupaint and is sandwiched between two cars that were painted with the old Floquil Vermont Green formula.

Years ago (early 1980's) I painted my first MEC boxcars using the old Floquil Vermont Green formula which looked really good to me. Since then Floquil  has changed that colour and I do not use it for any rolling stock. I really liked using that old colour as it also matched well for Vermont Railway boxcars and North Stratford Ry boxcars. I had a North Stratford car that was a custom boxcar offering back in the 1980's by Bev-Bel and did match the old Floquil Vermont Green well. I built a PS-1 as a second North Stratford boxcar and used the Vermont Green. I weathered both boxcars up so one would never notice if there was a difference anyhow.

Since then Peter Mumby and I built a small group of 40 and 50 foot MEC modern boxcars. For these I painted them in Accupaint Pine Green. In my Nov 3, 2011 post I explained painted a couple of MEC gondolas using a mix of Floquil dark green 25% and Floquil CNW Green 75%...which I think looks pretty good. The CNW paint has a gloss finish making the boxcar ready for decals. I used this mix only because I did not have any Accupaint on hand and my other greens were dried up. Check my photos and you be the judge if this mix works for you.

Over the years Bob Bennett has done numerous articles for RMC using Accupaint Pine Green as one of his choices, the other being Polly Scale MEC Pine Green. I have seen other authors describe using Polly Scale MEC green on boxcars and engines. John Nehrich used Floquil Dark Green on his MEC wooden outside brace milk car. Floquil's current dark green looks more like coach green to me and lighter than what was once available.

There are many good choices to use for MEC green. When you take into consideration weathering and the varying light angles plus the age of the cars paint, your favourite choice could be correct.

By this point looking at my photos you probably are thinking why does this guy have boxcars from the 1960's through 1980's in his collection when he models the 1950's. Well over the years I have dabbled in different era's and now have enough cars to run one train for each decade following the 1950's up till the end of the 1980's. I don't plan on building many more modern cars although it has been fun, and I did learn a lot about changes made to rolling stock through the years.

The boxcar to the right is a Bev-Bel custom offering while the PS-1 is one I  painted and lettered back in the 1980's.

This photo was taken from a different angle but in the same light a few minutes after the one above. Note the difference in colour just by changing the angle of view.