Pete, It's going to take MUCHO chips to match any NdeM diesel paint scheme !!! Every unit was slightly different, unless it was a member of a freshly delivered order which was painted at the factory.

My "Dulux Gold" question only pertains to passenger cars.

Mil Gracias, Companero

There's a pretty good chance that's Dulux Gold on the locomotives as well, Sammy, so we'll see. I haven't found a whole mucho lot of bien N de M imagens to work with as of yet.

If anyone is wondering why I didn't use the 1960's Athearn HO GP-30 model as a potential guide toward the Reading's 1962 color combo, well, here it is. Seems to be more reminiscent of the Chicago and Northwestern's later Zito paint scheme, huh?...

I've got hundreds of good color images of NdeM diesels (that nobody wants to publish), and I can assure you that the yellow ain't "Dulux Gold". It looks pukey yellow pretty much all the time, except for a very few units where it looks gold all the time. The green has varying amounts of brown, and the orange can be anything up to and including fire engine red, depending how long a particular locomotive has been in service.

Most of the ready to run HO NdeM diesel models are reasonably close, at least for SOME members of each class.

There are so many variables in a paint job - what pigments used, who mixed it, what day of the week, how many beers for lunch, etc. NdeM always struck me as vermillion, Pullman-ish green and run of the mill safety yellow when fresh. Then comes weathering and dirt. Green and yellow would get lighter when chalking, vermillion would get orangey. They could be all over the map. I have a photo of a Santa Fe SDP40, IIRC, pink warbonnet at Sullivan’s curve in Cajon Pass - the red weathered really fast while the silver still looked really good. Go figure….

Your first line covers NdeM and why there was so much variation in diesel locomotive liveries. As for the pink warbonnet, I can tell you that we used some real caustic stuff to wash real dirty power, and that NdeM also had a few engines with pink noses, too...

I think you just won the grand prize, Eric, but you'll have to contact Sammy to find out what it is... LOL

Sorry fellas, not really close, & no cigar. The overwhelming majority of NdeM diesels 1950s through 1980s had Tropicana Orange noses, or something similar... if you saw them for real instead of on one of these squirrely computers, that is.

POR CIERTO.

Dodge Truck did call that color "Toreador Red", Sammy, and it does appear quite orange in person, especially out in the sun. On the computer, it'll range from a bright pinkish red all the way into a medium to dark orange. The picture below is much more representative of what it actually looks like here in Pennsylvania but the question remains, would that be orange enough?...

The other two colors would be Pullman Green and that pukey-looking Reading/Lackawanna Yellow, the same as those on EMD FT #103...

This is getting to be like arguing about whether the earth is flat or not. The way I heard it ---When the Flat Earth Society had their last meeting, people came from all around the world.

The damn orange on NdeM diesels looks like the old "reefer orange" model train paint (except when it doesn't). Pullman Green looks about right on PASSENGER CARS. On NdeM diesels the green is an ambiguous color with brown tendencies. We agree on pukey yellow (which does not have gold tendencies) on the locomotives. (I think).

Vaya pues....

I haven’t found any commercial references to what colors NdeM used. I’ve now thought about this a bit. To me, the red/vermillion was like a cadmium red which is bright red that leans towards orange. If cadmium pigments were used, they would chemically weather lighter towards orange. The green is closer to PRR’s DGLE (incorrectly called Brunswick green) than Pullman green but maybe not quite as dark as DGLE. That’s my guess, your mileage may vary.

Note for the hundredth time: You can’t match paint colors to photos.

Now, time for that second cup of coffee….

I was actually going by what you guys were posting, Eric, not the pictures of which there isn't that many, at least until Sammy breaks out some of his stash. LOL

This 1971 Dodge D200 is a Toreador Red/Bright Red truck apparently repainted 15 years before the video was shot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l--HRIeAStA

As we see here, Sammy, that color can look as orange as a Tropicana reefer although it really isn't...

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/c8/17 ... c19ad0.jpg

The PRR's Dark Green Locomotive Enamel is basically black, blue, and yellow while Brewster Green is black, white, and all three primary colors, blue, yellow, and red. Here are the new scans of GM WE5779, GMC Brewster Green, and WE5780 which does look more like the darker shade of Brewster Green instead of DGLE. I might try plugging those in next to see how they work...

This old Murphy sheet from AutoColorLibrary has three shades of Brewster on it. The Brewster Green Light would be the equivalent of Mack Truck Brewster Green while the Medium is GMC Brewster Green. Rolls Royce Blue almost looks like GMC Narva Green and Deep Coach (Painters') Green, which is on the Rinshed-Mason Per-Max sheet I have, is very similar to WE5771, the common Mack Truck chrome green and the color I matched to the John Bull replica at Strasburg...

First off, THANK YOU for answering my original question, which concerned "Dulux Gold".

No offense, youse guys, but to be honest, discussing vintage NdeM diesel locomotive color schemes wit youse is like trying to get a booger off my finger. Youse guys know about as much about the NdeM as I do about the Pennsy, for the same reason --- experience, or lack of it, depending. Since youse guys live near some great railroad museums and railroad libraries, youse can get a good overview of dis subject by hunting down a copy of Morning Sun Books "NdeM in Color", by Mathew J Herson.

My fotos (Mexican spelling) of NdeM have attracted zero interest from publishers, and I have no way of putting them on the internet so that they will display accurately. There are plenty of others who have huge NdeM foto collections, and NdeM has plenty of folks who are interested. We have a fine bi lingual Mexican RR internet group, and we share not only with each other, but also with the model train manufacturers. In general, those of us that want to know about NdeM diesel locomotive paint jobs already know what we need to know, many of us have NdeM trainsets that look pretty Mexican, and the preserved examples of these locomotives are in the care of NdeM retirees. As I was told by the master model builder Arquitecto Esteban Walker, this is the key to understanding both Mexico and the NdeM: Nit picking paint colors is meaningless, so long as everything looks MEXICAN.

"Amor de lejos es amor de pendejos" (Old Mexican proverb meaning "Love from afar is the love of fools".)

And THAT, folks, is the real answer. Another that also applies: If it looks good enough from 20’ away, it’s good enough for me. Sorry about that pesky booger, Sammy.

Now, back to contemplating my navel…..