Apparently, I missed Narva Green on the Martin-Senour chart because it does look excessively dark on there...

For something a little off-the-wall here on this fine Sunday morning, another non-railroad item I enjoy preserving is Merion Bluegrass.

Merion was discovered by Joe Valentine at the Merion Golf Club down near Philly and became the very first named variety of Kentucky Bluegrass...

https://plantscience.psu.edu/research/c ... 1-industry

Merion was widely planted in the forties, fifties, and into the sixties so this would be a typical turf grass found in landscaped areas around train stations and such at the time. I grew up on a Merion Bluegrass and White Clover lawn and now I have one here, too. LOL

Merion still has the darkest green foliage out of all the bluegrass varieties ever introduced for commercial use. The closest I've seen is the Midnight variety. There are even conspiracy theories involved as to why it fell out of favor because it doesn't take a lot of time and materials to make it look good. All I ever do is throw lime on it since it does best in soil that leans slightly toward the sweet side. Rust can be a bit of a problem when hot and humid weather hits, however.

Although seed for Merion is no longer produced, the plants are still out there and easy to find. It does reproduce true from seed if you'd want raise it yourself and is simple to propagate vegetatively. Here's a small clump growing across the street that escaped from my yard which can be compared to a modern turf grass mix behind it. I'll have to grab a shovel after sundown and get it back. Looks like a little hunk next to the vent pipe also...

I'll be turning 60 on Saturday so in order to mark the occasion, perhaps I'll reinstall the lawn out front just so I can tell people to get off of it. LOL

Now I'm wondering if the Reading ever changed the lettering color on the lightweight Crusader cars to match the Narva Green on the new diesels when the cars were refurbished. It's sort of hard to tell from this pic...

Today's fan deck picture, 63203 Mariner Blue, 3430 Export Blue, 2622 Scarlet, and 1863 Swift Red.

As previously noted, Mariner Blue is WE5661 and Export Blue is WE5668. Unfortunately, I was unable to determine the two reds through the code references at hand so I had to resort to visual chip matches with the 1954 catalog. I'll probably check these several more times to ensure they're correct but this is what they were this afternoon...

93-2622 appears to be WE5871...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5871

93-1863 looks like WE5865...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5865

UPDATE EDIT: Put the reds up against the Sherwin-Williams Kem fleet chart as well. Still good so far.

Reading cabooses do seem to be consistently lighter and brighter than those of the surrounding railroads so I'm still feeling pretty good about the Scarlet...

Studebaker also used Swift Red back in the early fifties so it's not hard to find alternative examples of that color...

The Crusader cars retained their blue lettering after the 1957 overhaul.

Phil Mulligan

Then that sounds like something I don't have to worry about, Phil. LOL Thank you!!!

There's not much else I can do with the two blue colors right now so I'll be sitting on those for a little while yet. They're both railroad colors as evidenced earlier with the NYC and Alaska and did work out very nicely with the dual chip match on the Blueliner. I'll be looking at the maintenance vehicles also which I'm guessing are 3430 also but we'll see.

Here's a good cabeese picture on the ARHS site I'll be playing with. The Jersey Central's red does appear darker and it looks like it's going to start snowing again...

http://archives.anthraciterailroads.org ... hotoID=903

Since I'm on Cream Medium now instead of the Kraft Yellow, I'll combine it with the medium Chevy Autumn Brown for the trackside structure paint combo. I don't think I posted the scan of that chip yet plus I've got something pretty cool to post up about that when I get a chance here soon.

Eh, this looks good also and a lighter medium cream color would probably start fading almost white a little faster...

I just had to do this pic. LOL Not only a Trainmaster front and slightly off-center, but the color of the caboose roof is an exact match with the boxcar behind it...

Well, I got the chance here soon this morning already so here goes...

These are the chip scans from a 1933 DuPont Prepared Paint brochure which recently appeared at my front door. If I picked the Reading's building colors we had looked at previously off this chart, they would be Cream, Old English Brown, and Maple Leaf Red. The Crimson is an exact match for 93-002 Red, Plate #51, in the 1954 catalog so I'll have to look for more...

And now a comparison with the depot samples from the NPRHS repro drift card set which showed up the same day. Factoring in the usual conditions that may have caused anomalies in the colors, I'd say they're not too far off.

Depot Sand is a bit of a toss-up between Sandstone and Vienna Drab, however... LOL

A 1950 GMC one-tonner flashing its original factory 93-2622 Pimpernel Scarlet paint...

The idea behind picking up the NPRHS drift card set was to see how many of the rolling stock examples matched up with the fleet colors. Apparently, they put a lot of time and effort into the set's creation so I thought tossing them 25 bucks for one to satisfy my curiosity wasn't a bad idea...

http://store.nprha.org/np-color-drift-card-set/

The red matches up with 93-066H which in turn best matches the WE5869 card in the fan deck...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5869

066 is usually located between Scarlet and Swift Red on the fleet charts so that about puts it where it should be. I will be checking all these lighter reds several more times because they are so similar to each other. Being a Western Maryland color, I don't see the Reading using it but you never know. LOL

The imitation gold card from the set is a perfect match for the newer Caterpillar yellow...

The newer and current Caterpillar Yellow is WE5904...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5904

Slightly less bold, the true 014 Imitation Gold is WE5903...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5903

WE5902 remains unidentified at the moment as far as usage goes but it's basically a darker shade of 014...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ode=WE5902

The lighter Frito Lay/Ford Sandpiper Yellow first appeared around 1974 so that wasn't included in the fan deck selection as of yet. From left to right, WE5904, WE5903, and WE5902...

Well, that tells me that 54015 on Eric's list is not what I thought it was. LOL It's definitely one of the ochres.

I'd imagine if the Cat Yellow was applied as a stand-in for 014 Imitation Gold, no one would really know the difference anyway especially after a year or so out in the weather.

It would be interesting, however, if Caterpillar's Bright Red is the same bright red the Northern Pacific used...