Green is sometimes greener than you think. I have personal experience with PRR (AMTK) GG1 4935. The motor was painted in the Dark Green Locomotive Color Wilmington Shop could obtain in the 1970's. It certainly looked almost black in clear sunlight.

Then one flat-lighted cloudy morning in Harrisburg with snow on the ground, the same paint on the same 4935 was very green. Dark, yes, but very green.

Phil Mulligan

Phil - yeah, PRR DGLE is a good example on how lighting makes a difference on a color’s appearance. It was definitely a very dark green but at a casual glance it looked black unless the lighting was right or it was next to something black. Models you see that are supposed to be DGLE are way too light supposedly either so they don’t look black indoors or because the color was/is mistakenly called Brunswick Green which is actually much lighter.

Going back to B&O, Bando Blue looks almost black in some situations but in the sun, other than mid-day, there’s no mistake that it’s definitely blue.

Of course, as paint weathers, bleaches and chalks the color can change dramatically. Our #471 was originally close to C&O Enchantment Blue. It’s now closer to a “baby blue” that no amount of rubbing or buffing compound can bring back. Man, that Imron is some hard stuff that doesn’t cut easily.

Pete - If Reading’s engineering drawings were saved somewhere, the paint diagrams should have vendor and color code info on them unless they referenced another standard spec or account. That’s the problem with Pullman, PRR, WM and others in some instances. For example, I’ve been trying to track down WM #202 Freight Car Red for years with no luck.

BTW, I don’t save images of colors for all the previously stated reasons. I do have a few drawings, paint samples and company lists that I’ve saved as provenance.

Phil, you're a Pennsy guy!!! Hey, tell me what you think of those two reddish-brown colors there in the middle, Chevy Coppertone and GMC Mahogany Brown. 93-24442 in the upper left is Bluebird school bus seat frame green. Almost looks just like that dark Jersey Central green...

Bando's the second chip down on the right, Eric. It was also used by the L&N, ACL, and AT&SF. Got any old pics of that WM #202 red? I saw PaintRef put up some 1929 chips if you need to go back that far.

I don't think too much of that old Reading engineering stuff is around any longer or else we should've seen something by now.

Nope. The color number would be 5505 for PRR Tuscan Red from DuPont. A different color - brown leaning slightly in the red. If you were able to compare the color chips, there’s a definite difference. The color numbers are based on pigment formulation specs. A specific color can’t have multiple numbers unless the color actually changed, even ever so slightly as to be barely discernible. That’s why there are so many variations on the list. That coding concept applies to all suppliers.

Close, but no cigar. Bando blue was 5370 in Dulux. I have an actual sample and the Imron version from Kent McClure at Monticello Railway Museum. I’ve got a couple potential B&O restorations on my future docket so that color has been verified.

WM-202 dates to 1955. I haven’t been able to track down the specifics anywhere. It’s similar to the generic “mineral red”.

But we’re drifting way off the Reading topic. We could move this part of the topic to the Paint sticky....

Those TC&W locos look more like the Erie-Lackawanna maroon color to me although perhaps not exactly the same. Definitely difficult to call this one one way or the other, Eric, at least until I can find better comparative pics...

Some of the Reading guys think Bando is also the Blueliner blue, Eric, so we haven't strayed too far off yet. LOL

WM #202 sounds like vermilion. Try DuPont 93-55141 and see what that looks like.

Fruehauf Trailer along with Dietz and Watson also use 93-2063 blue. That truck is making me hungry...

A half-decent shot of both the cab engine greens taken from the second Kantner film trailer on YouBoob along with a direct scan of a Singer tracing kit box although that's ink instead of paint. In the stills and on the video itself, the newer green looks slightly darker than the old one. LOL Perhaps extreme fade was the problem with that color. Still can't find the darker Grande imitation gold anywhere on the Reading as of yet...

Here's my dubious photo match of the Narva. Sometimes, you just have to break the convention to get what you want... LOL

Just a quick case study on how much different Woodfield can appear on old film and why it could have been such a difficult paint color to figure out. I did crank up the saturation a bit on both photos...

LOL Phil!!! Now you've got me thinking if Mr. Hammer's proposal was the inspiration for this...

The list does have Reading’s Black 2234, Woodfield Green 6195 and Imitation Gold 54388. If you can find chips for those exact numbers, you’re covered for that scheme. The yellow I have, 54015, I’m not sure if that’s for the green/yellow scheme or for safety appliances i.e. grab irons, etc. though I’d lean heavily towards safety appliances.

If you’re able to nail the later scheme colors, with verifiable documentation, I’ll add them to the list.

Sounds good, Eric!!! I don't feel it's up to me to make the final call on the Reading codes, though. I'll pass that one off to the good folks over there at the museum. LOL

http://www.readingrailroadmuseum.org/rc ... aint.shtml

Since you're the codes guy and I'm more of a PA Dutch-type eyeballer, I think I'll post the index pages from the DuPont Bulletin 11 over in your thread and then place the rest of my outdoor images of the chip pages here. Those interested can then open both windows at once for easier reference.

Since the blues showed up just in time for Christmas, it's beginning to look like...

...the Chessie System was real fond of those Federal Truck colors...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedi ... ke=Federal

93-6014 blue, bottom center, is also known as Eastern Airlines' "Ionosphere Blue"...

The photo of RDG FT set 252A-B was taken in the middle of a repaint. The black and green are done but the yellow stripes are still pending. The building behind the units is the Reading Locomotive Shop so it looks like they were parked there to dry and then have the yellow stripes and lettering applied. Interestingly, they were probably placed there by 0-6-0T 1251.

The HO model of a FM C-liner (RDG didn't have C-liners; RDG 266 was an EMD F-3) is what you might get if you applied the GP-30 scheme to a cab unit, except the green is too light.

RDG retained the classic cab unit scheme up to ConRail and currently FP-7's 902/903 are painted in that color scheme at Steamtown.

Phil Mulligan