Is Rapido Panorama lighting greenish color correct?

[mmagliaro]

So, now that I've repainted my NP Rapido car, I finally got around to putting batteries into the
Easy Peasy lighting board.  It works great - reasonably bright and even, and of course, no flicker.
But is the greenish light color really correct?
It looks weird to me.   Why isn't it just some "warm white" color.   
Maybe it's just me, but I like the look of the old-style Kato incandescent lighting better.

If someone out there can convince me that it's really accurate, I'll leave it.   I am considering unsoldering and replacing
the LEDs with a whiter/yellower shade.

Opinions?

[peteski]

I don't know if the greenish light is correct (possibly imitating fluorescent cool white light shining through green tinted windows) but I don't care for it either.  But I don't yearn for the old fashioned incandescent lighting kits either - they were too dim and the light was too yellowish.  They also lit the interior very unevenly (with a hot spot near the bulb).  Speaking of hot, they could get hot enough to melt the car's roof.

I like Kato white LED illumination.  It looks like fluorescent lighting and with some amber tint (in addition to the supplied amber filter) it can look like incandescent light.

[hpwrick]

It's been a while ago but at a train show, I witnessed the lighting and listened to a on going discussion.      The overall concensus was it looked as close to correct as you are going to get but a bit on the bright side.    In my opinion, I thought it looked pretty good.

The only downside.   If you hang around me long enough you'd hear me say that passenger car lighting in general is to bright, as in it shouldn't be bright enough to be seen during daylight hours.

To answer your original question:  To greenish?  Different prototypes had different types and colors of lighting as well as tinted windows.   

In an attempt to give you some good examples of passenger lighting allow me to share the following:   A local HO railroad modeler, John Acosta, took the following video of his layout and lighted passenger cars: 

   

My favorite:   This one also shows off John's work, note the greenish color ... it looks perfect to me:   

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In John's video, the color of lighting does vary from car to car  as did the prototypes.   To these eyes they all look correct.   I will elaborate more on the prototype here in one of my...  next post.   
 
I'd give it a thumbs up, as in A-ok.

I hope this helps.

RickH., aka BarstowRick

[hpwrick]

Here is one more video of John's layout, a passing AT&SF passenger train, taken during a daylight photo op: 

 On Time!

Keeping in mind my comment about car lighting during the daylight hours.   In case you missed it.   The lighting shouldn't be bright enough to be seen  during daylight hours.

You got to love it.

RickH   aka  BarstowRick

[Nato]

                    The Intermountain Centraillia cars with their battery lighting also have that "greenish" color. It is probably as close to lighting through tinted windows as can be simulated. It dosen't look right to me. The best representation of Flourosent Lighting is the bright slightly blueish color on Con Cor's "Pioneer Zephyr" ,but I'am pretty sure this train was built in the pre tinted window 1930's. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[rogergperkins]

http://www.rapidotrains.com/light_n.html
This is the link I just copied from Jason's web site.
Note the color in their photo.

I have installed several of these lights in MTL and Con Cor passenger cars and prefer them to
the Kato lighting kits which in my hands do not give an even distribution of light and also flicker.

[hpwrick]

As a youngster after having watched passenger train after passenger trive arrive in places like Barstow, Ca.,  Watsonville, Ca.,   Salinas, Ca.,  Hollister, Ca., (ok I admit not to many in Hollister...grin)  and the SP Coast Daylight in Gilroy, CA.  Not too forget the commute type trains into Santa Cruz, Ca., and Monterey, Ca.. To the best of my recollection the green tinted windows gave the lighting a greenish tint when viewed or seen from the outside of the passenger cars.   

Do I like the green tint?  I don't have to like it but it is prototype.   

Just my two cents.

RickH  aka BarstowRick

Edited add on:    Apparently this same discussion is in full swing on other train websites.    Lot's of interesting information being shared.

[kornellred]

Jason Shron, founder and proprietor of RapidoTrains, remarked that the Easy-Peasy lighting modules were deliberately shaded to represent what interior railroad car lighting looked like through Solex window glass at night, as viewed from outside, of course.  Solex was not the only tinted glass being used, but it was pretty extensive in railroad applications.  It is correct for the Panorama series cars that RapidoTrains offers.