Gee now, I wonder which railroad may have used this absolutely beautiful and stunning dark smoky gray color from the 1969 DuPont fleet chip sheets. Looks like something that could be quite trendy out west somewhere, especially during fire season when it might be a little tough to see that big blue sky...

If that Monon Steve fellow happened to suffer from a slight case of Oppositional Defiance Disorder like that Annville Pete guy does, he might start with this particular chip first and move outward from there... LOL

As modern life became more complicated and out of control, fleet paint colors were no exception. Here are the three Martin Senour sheets which include the Reading yellows and greens. The only one missing by then is the Narva Green but all the other yellows and greens are there. Looks like those dark smoky gray colors really caught on. It might be really good to have the numbers if dealing with those... LOL

This stuff gets so addicting I might have to soon go cold turkey again for awhile. LOL I didn't forget about the REA signs yet so I guess I'm okay for now...

This is just an illustration of how much Venetian Yellow can vary in appearance if there's not enough red in the picture or scan. My scanner makes it look more orange with a little too much red which can actually work in my favor when viewing old photos that have the same problem. To the naked eye, it's a relatively pale golden yellow. Definitely a wild one. LOL

The General Motors "WE" codes can be very helpful when cross-referencing fleet colors and their different numbers between manufacturers...

Whoops, Page 7 has the darker greens on it including the Brewster. Yeah, I think we'll call it a night... LOL

MS 8410 matches DuPont 95-014 Imitation Gold pretty well but now there's a slightly darker shade, MS 11602. The slightly lighter Frito-Lay Ford Sandpiper Yellow is on the right.

I think that chip I stuck on the Monon F-3 might be an even lighter version of Imitation Gold which could potentially match up with what I've seen on those EMD conceptual proposals for the E-units that were never built. The color is very similar to the Venetian Yellow chip directly above it on the MS chart only a bit less yellow. I'll have to look in my later 50's DuPont books to see if it's in there also since it's an older color going by the Ditzler/PPG number 80930 but I'm taking it easy tonight... LOL

The three-digit Acme Fleet-X code of 22-948 for the U23B's also tells me the non-metallic Monon gold is an older color as most of their postwar codes are four. My Martin Senour cross-reference guide came through on this one pegging MS 8645 as DuPont 93-527 which, through PaintRef, generated another later Ditzler/PPG code, 82858...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail.cgi?dupont=527

Through some hard searching, the Monon guys may be able to come up with an Acme chip sheet with that number on it but there again, if it's prewar, it would be fairly rare.

Good Monon pics are fairly rare also but this one of a brand new #602 is definitely showing an Imitation Gold-like color... LOL

I'm still waiting for that for that old thirties Per-Max sheet to arrive. The color I'm after here as Woodfield this time is called Chevrolet Terrace Green, fourth one down on the right. If it matches the Seacrest Green, I'll be finalizing all my Reading postwar diesel color choices. Looked good in the eBay picture so we'll see if it was worth it... LOL

Now here's one of the greatest 93-242 Kraft Yellow alternative example pictures of all time. Of course, it's on another 1974 Dodge truck. LOL You don't see this particular view too often but, wow, what a great shot of the color!!!...

Now here's an outstanding shot of the 93-1290 Venetian Yellow on this 1953 GMC showing pretty much exactly what the 1962 Reading yellow should look like if you're standing right in front of it on a nice sunny day. Not all that much different than 93-242, just a slightly darker shade. Compare with various pictures of NS #1067 to see the difference...

This little Venetian Yellow montage came out pretty well and, besides the SP&S, perhaps any extant paint code numbers can be gleaned from the Rio Grande since they used the color beforehand...

And maybe we should be a bit more careful with the term "Grande Gold" since there is more than one. LOL The newer and slightly darker version is in the background...

Reading and D&RGW Aspen, aka Grande, gold are the same because that was an EMD standard color. EMD #8173994.

BTW, color names are meaningless since the same color is called by different names by different companies. In this case, the names Aspen and Grande originated from EMD and D&RGW.

Monon gold: Duco #261-30690 in 1949 on the BL2s; National Lead #22-948 in 1969 on the U23Bs.

National Lead is the company name while Acme Fleet-X is the brand name, Eric. That 22-prefix code Diamond-T Milori Green chip I posted over the LEMTU awhile back is from one of their sheets.

Here's a 1940 GMC set on eBay, for instance, which will have a quite a few of the fleet colors on it including Venetian Yellow...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1940-GMC-Color ... 2058195577

Should you find 22-948 somewhere among all the others, you'll have the correct chip for the Monon gold. Not only that, those vintage Acme sheets have their mixing formulas also. DuPont used to do that as well.

If I was Santa, I would've brought you the the ultimate old microfiche file containing every single paint color code number known to man with all the cross-references included, but... LOL

It really is a hell of a lot of fun trying to do it this way, though, but it's costing me too much money. I could've had a new camera by now. If I really wanted to go nuts on this, I'd head down to the NAPA and buy up some pre-mixed quarts of paint for samples if they still sell the fleet colors like that.

As far as which Aspen and/or Grande Gold ended up on the FP-7's during their final repaint, a just little bit of logic might help determine my final answer there...