Likely paint colors to be exact. Definitely a beginning point for eventual verification. As they say over there in Hamburg, "careful records were not always kept" and this might be a bit better than a few of those general-purpose "Reading Greens" I've seen pop up over the last couple of decades or so. LOL

Okay, where was I? I guess we'll do them in reverse order of their introduction on the railroad.

The 1973 "Green Machine" green is Jewel Green, a.k.a. the 1950's-era Railway Express Agency green. Two of its Dupont codes are 5174 and 93-6202. The PPG code is 40386. While the chip sample appears to be a bit washed out, here's its page on PaintRef.com...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... nt=93-6202

In a 1969 DuPont fleet catalog, 93-6202 is located right between 93-5800, the Southern's Crescent green and 93-5316, an agricultural-type green often used by old Oliver owners to restore their tractors...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/chipdisplay ... o=&page=87

Another decent example might be an old metal toy truck provided, of course, the maker had access to the actual paint chips and/or codes. This one was done by Marx...

Next up is the 1962 green introduced with the GP-30's. This was one I wouldn't be able to figure out without some sort of sample. Since I had always thought the early-sixties Tyco HO scale GP-20 represented this color very accurately, I used that to compare to the chips in my 1954 DuPont bulletin.

93-7666, Fruehauf trailer green, was a close second but the winner here is 93-046, GMC Morat Green...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ont=93-046

Both of these examples are repaints, however...

Now for that "Woodfield" green. The Western Pacific had it first, then the Reading as the DF and DP classes were shopped sometime in the '50s. Like I stated over in Eric's paint library thread, this is one color I am intimately familiar with. My dad worked for the Singer Company. It's also the traditional 7up green...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... pont=57625

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... zler=40454

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... zler=43828

We had so many of these things lying around the house back then. My bicycles were always very well lubricated...

So what exactly was the first and darker cab unit green? I could only find one decent old photo to work with there but it does match up pretty well with this particular GMC truck color...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... va%20Green

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... va%20Green

Same paint, two different scans. Like Woodfield, this shade lightens up quite a bit out in the sun. Narva Green is also bit more bluish but both colors will appear to be almost identical in old photos.

Another repaint...

Finally, as much as the Reading greens are concerned, there's one paint color mystery which will probably never be solved. Is it a green or is it a brown? LOL

There are way too many codes involved here. I'll just present this one since it's on my chart and is yet another old GMC truck color...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... nt=93-2015

This is also the green which is paired with Omaha Orange on Great Northern locos.

Not often you see a UPS truck in this condition but it pretty much looks like all the remaining Pullman Green Reading engines did right before Conrail...

Alrighty then, time for an intermission before we get to the yellows. Before I take a break, here's one color Norfolk Southern has absolutely no trouble reproducing, basic black. LOL Plenty of alternative examples right there on the associated PaintRef page...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... ont=93-005

Okay, I'm back like a bad check. Plenty of views and no responses so I guess I might be doing alright so far. LOL

By any chance does anyone remember that little calculator trick Model Railroader magazine published sometime back in the seventies? Once you went through factoring all the capacity, load limit, and other data numbers on the tank car, it ended up with "SHELLOIL" upside down on the display...

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail ... nt=93-5248

Besides being the Reading's multi-use "safety always" and axle bearing cover yellow, it's also the 1973 yellow combined with Jewel Green. The Lehigh Valley C420's with the as-built gray paint job featured this yellow as well.

This yellow is the most yellow of all the yellows in my DuPont bulletin and the page on which it's located I'll post up next. 93-54701, the chip directly below 5248, was used by the Alaska RR and Iowa Interstate according to Eric's list.

Only one alternate example necessary here. Difficult to determine whether this one's been restored or not...

Before I post up the associated chips page, I'll take this time to remind everyone concerned that Reading locomotives in any shape or form were never, ever any shade of orange. Like our 45th President of these great United States of America, Reading engines only appear orange on camera, especially if a slight bit of "overprocessing" happens to take place afterward. LOL

Like the green chip page I attached over in Eric's thread, here's a photo taken outside in the sun about quarter after ten in the morning with my good ol' trusty Canon A40. 93-1226, Diamond Truck Yellow, is also the CNW's Traditional Yellow as well as the original yellow applied to the Western Pacific's FT's...

Now, watch what occurs to these chips when scanned with my HP Photosmart C4180 All-in-One, especially the three shades of imitation gold, 93-242, 93-1290, and 93-5607...

Well, that pretty much explains that so without further adieu, I'm pleased to present the holy grail, the golden fleece, the 1962 yellow, for all the members of the Reading community (along with the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle folks) across the country and even worldwide...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... nt=93-1290

Darn GMC's everywhere!!!...

Here are the codes for the other two shades. Not much there yet for 93-5607...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetai ... nt=93-5607

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/paintdetail.cgi?dupont=242

At this point, I'm still attempting to confirm whether or not the Reading used either the darker or lighter imitation gold in any applications but until then, here's an alternative example of each. Is the darker shade that Grande Gold/Duco Orange color? It just might be. As far as the lighter shade goes, I knew I could work a real truck into this thread somehow... LOL

I'm not sure of the paint chips but when RDG PR guy Harry Hammer proposed that the new GP-30's be painted in the yellow and green, he suggested they use the green of the wide stripe on the F-units and the yellow from the narrow stripes on the F-units.

EMD, of course, might have had another idea.

Didn't EMD and GMC have the same parent company?

Phil Mulligan

Yes they did, Phil, but check this out. By 1962, Morat Green and Venetian Yellow were already well-established as a complimentary GMC truck color combination...

http://oldchevytrucks.com/blog/index.ph ... t-schemes/

Not only that, since these were the very first production GP-30's, I can see the General Motors hierarchy wanting them to look good which, in the end, they really did.

Just a couple notes to the above posts:

REA used three different greens: the original dark green DuPont 4474 up to 1954, a lighter shade of the dark green DuPont 6602/Ditzler 40386 from 1954 - 1960 and the lighter apple green Sherwin-Williams F-40GC-14 from 1960 onward. None were the same as Reading's, that I know of.

The Reading Company Technical & Historical Society was working on all the original paint and color codes. I don't know how far along they had gotten. You might want to contact them for more info.

EMD did not have a standard green color that was used on the Reading that I know of. They would have used whatever DuPont colors that were specified by the Reading.

EMD was a division of GM, GM owned a fair chunk of DuPont stock. Hence the long relationship of DuPont paints on anything GM.

The UPS brown was based on the early original Pullman color which was a brown with a very slight greenish cast. Over the years, the standard Pullman color drifted more towards the green end of things. A nice article on Pullman colors: https://utahrails.net/pass/pullman-green.php.

NVPete:
I don't know what you're using for samples but be forewarned: Going by photos is strictly verboten - way too many lighting variables, film's color accuracy issues and the breakdown of colors in an aging print. Trying to compare original digital images using a computer monitor is impossible unless it is capable of and has been recently professionally calibrated and the originating camera has a dead-on white balance. You'll still have the same lighting issues. And, you're relying on the source material to be accurate. An example.... A lot of folks say that B&O Gray has a greenish cast to it. I say nay nay. Most are going by photos. But... Was there grass or trees nearby? Low sun angle? Heavy overcast? There's your greenish cast. The variables list is endless. And, everyone's eyes perceive color differently.

For an exact match, you need a chip of the original color whether from a chip book (not ideal as it may not be exact but can do in a pinch to get close if it's the correct number), a company paint shop drift card (best), company records, or a from piece of equipment properly prepared (second best). So keep your focus narrow.

Anyway, it sounds like you're having fun chasing it down. Chasing paint colors can send you down a rabbit hole, though.

Oh Eric, I'm having a frickin' riot doing this and Norman over at the RCT&HS knew about it shortly before I joined RYPN. LOL I will confess I was planning to present my findings on the home turf Reading Modeler site first but had problems creating an account there. I had contacted the museum initially to see if they could help with that and I did show them a little bit of what I had.

As far as any Reading diesel codes go, they only have what you have.

I agree, old photos can be absolutely terrible for color matching but nowadays, we do have a few tools at our disposal to jack them around to alleviate the problem somewhat. When you get into the mid-seventies they get much better, however. I also have the advantage of seeing most of these colors with my own eyes first-hand.

Also, fortunately for me, was the fact the Reading repainted for the second time FP-7's #900, #902, and #903 again in the Woodfield Green only a couple years before they were conveyed to SEPTA. I had some excellent pics to work with there. The Reading also repainted the Reading-based steam-powered wreck crane #90906 very late in the game so if you want to see some good pics of relatively fresh Morat Green and Venetian Yellow, take a look at that one.

Hey, someone had to try this. Those Reading codes have been missing for far too long. I figured WTH, it might as well be me.

I wonder if anyone's ever tried the Alco museum up there in New York? From what I understand, their paint vendor was Pratt & Lambert which is now part of Sherwin-Williams also. I thought the paint they put on the remains of #301 looked pretty good.

Along with B&O blue, there are grayish greens and greenish grays in my DuPont book. If you'd like, I'll post the whole thing, the code index included. PaintRef doesn't have it that complete yet as far as I know.

I've read that Utah Rails article a couple times. Excellent info there. All the Pullman-esque greens are located in the third column on the green chip page I posted. The UPS codes are on Formula Express. They use 93-6578 "Forklift Yellow" as a lettering color.

The later REA Express codes are on Formula Express as well. I already have all those screenshot just in case you didn't yet and yes, I did find that 6202 green '54 Railway Express Agency code right there on your list... LOL