And the dark imitation gold, I completely forgot there was another railroad which used that color, the "Sierra Pacific"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0fR49-u6fo

Too much drama for me but the exciting part starts at about 1:02:00. Will Billy Travers in the hopped-up 3500 horsepower GP-40 #3081 run 'em down and save the day? LOL

The Tidewater Inland Express trucking company also utilized 93-5607. All I could find there was a picture of a 1993 Winross model which looks fairly accurate for indoors but at the very least we can see where that yellow was supposed to go...

Before the FT occurred, I was actually looking at the Great Northern yellow as a possible candidate for 93-242 but the Lackawanna would do just fine. LOL On Chrysler products, the color is known by either Yellow Blaze or Brite Yellow depending on whether it went on the cars or the trucks.

Here's the PaintRef page for 242 which also goes by "42867"...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... pont=42867

The may be some confusion with the chip color on PaintRef and elsewhere which messed me up earlier before I even signed on to RYPN but Daisy Duke's Roadrunner was Yellow Blaze...

Yeah, I'll just leave 93-242 on the suspect list for now but the green does show up around the cab windshield in this pic of GN F-7 #370-A...

Ooooo, this is a good pic!!! Since I'm pretty much just winging this thread now, I think what I'll do next is put together some of the relevant western road passenger car pictures for a comparison of the yellows, those primarily being the GN, SP&S, and the DRGW. I'll take some time and look for the best ones I can find.

This is GN #1179 in the shade both as downloaded and only manipulated by increasing the saturation level. The Pullster/Brewman green really shows up nicely here and that yellow does look like the pale imitation gold. The car on the left is less faded...

On second thought, you guys know where to find all those passenger car pics so I'll just forgo that. LOL Instead, here's a couple more railroads which used the same imitation gold color as the Reading, the Boston & Maine and the Northern Pacific which put it on both versions of the pine tree scheme. I see a Rio Grande unit back there also...

Now this pic taken looking northward between the turntables at Rutherford isn't the greatest colorwise but it does have three of the Reading greens and both yellows in it. The C424 on the left is basically brand new and F7 #280 will soon be headed off to EMD to get transformed into a GP-35. What I can tell from this pic is that all the imitation gold colors are identical so I'll say now the Reading never did use the Grande Gold on anything...

Since I've been neglecting the 5248 "Safety Always" Yellow, Oscar Meyer also uses that color. Whacking your wiener with a pole is never a good idea since it usually makes you say "Ouch!" but that is exactly what happened in Enola about five years ago. The yard is down at the base of the hill in the background...

93-5248 Yellow on Lehigh Valley C420 #405...

The Aspen/Grande Gold was what EMD used for striping on the F units when manufactured. That info came from DuPont and EMD. What was used on any Reading repaints of the F units, that I can’t tell you.

The Reading was likely one of the railroads which ordered its FT's before the war, Eric, but only got them afterwards so there were a few years of turmoil there where changes may have been made. With the issue of the two different greens involved as well, it's definitely something I'll continue to explore and I'd encourage any interested parties to do so also.

At the moment, I'm looking at that 54292 BO/CNJ/WAB/NKP/SOO Yellow as a possible equivalent of 93-242...

Aspen gold is not speculation. It is what was applied by the factory. EMD and DuPont did NOT play fast & loose with paint colors. Color wasn’t chosen on a whim. A lot of thought went into it as that’s your corporate image. People got paid to come up with colors and schemes. That is still common practice today.

You approve and specify a color, it went on the styling drawing and that’s what got applied in the paint shop. Period. No guesswork. No fudging. That’s why it’s specified. Can you imagine the hell to pay if you painted something maroon because it’s, well, kinda like Tuscan and maybe nobody would notice? Oh, they’d notice alright. Heads would roll...

And it doesn’t matter who the builder was. You spec the paint and color; that’s what you got. That’s why colors were coded - so they could be reproduced anywhere, anytime and still match within the same brand of paint.

Just to reiterate, chasing old DuPont numbers for a sorta, kinda match is an exercise in futility since the numbers aren’t valid anymore. The colors can’t be reproduced with those numbers.

But if you’re having fun, who am I to pee in yer Wheatles. Just please be careful when you make a statement based on a personal assumption. You could confuse someone looking at all the speculation in this thread.

I prefer scrapple over Wheaties, Eric, and if you'd whizz on that, I probably wouldn't know the difference anyway. LOL

As a designer who deals with colors myself, I won't argue with you at all concerning your points of view but I am having a hard time putting the Woodfield Green and Grande Gold together. Personally, I think it would look rather odd especially with the way those two can color shift. The medium and lighter imitation golds actually do go better with Woodfield and the Narva Green if you ask me, mostly because they provide a better separation between the green and black. The Grande Gold does look good as a main color with the neutral black and aluminum accents as on the DRGW, however.

Here's another still from that second Kantner trailer with both cab unit greens so for now, I'm just going with what I see. The second pic is #250 still in its original paint but with the safety yellow later applied to the handrails and grabs...

One thing you need to be aware of in your yellow searches, some yellow pigments, unless protected, were less UV stable so tended to chalk and weather off to a more pastel color a little faster. That’s gonna throw off your search unless you’re looking at a fresh sample in hand. Some brighter reds had the same problem. Railroads had drift cards to compare with to make sure the colors as mixed were correct.

Keep in mind that color contrast was, and still is, important. While you may personally think a more pale yellow looks better, the Aspen gold will give you more punch over the green. This is important in the lettering so that it stands out boldly. You can bet that was a consideration in choosing those colors. As for safety yellow, that looks ugly on any paint scheme but ya gotta have those safety considerations.

Darn tootin', Eric!!! LOL

I'm sure I'd recognize an Aspen-type gold if I'd see it, though.

Hey, tonight's pizza night at the NVPete household. You're certainly invited.

Those neutrals do work. I'm not sure if the red helps or not.

And it really sucks Catherine Bach didn't work for the Rio Grande...

The pale and medium imitation golds are much more difficult to differentiate, however. If the Reading had snuck the lighter one into the mix somewhere, it would be easy to miss...