You can be the judge on the early Tyco Pennsy F-9, Phil. My opinion of Tyco is they started out strong with the colors but overall, got more abstract and toy-like later on. I also had a Burlington GP-20 which didn't look too bad. They were all molded in main body-colored plastic according to the livery represented unlike models today and did have scale-width hoods. After the train platform got replaced by a basement BB gun shooting gallery, that was pretty much it for all that old Tyco stuff. LOL

In the early 1980's I was blessed to have a job that put me in an helicopter to shoot photos of "haze gray and underway" US Navy ships, then come back into a nicely equipped color photo lab and make pretty prints that the Captains and Admirals could give away to visitors and at award ceremonies. I used these prints to arrange to have fresh donuts delivered to the photolab every morning - for cumshaw.

It was a daily job pull out a negative of a ship, use the color meter beside the photo enlarger to make a reading on a sunlit part of the gray ship, neutral out all three (R/B/G; Cyan/Magenta/Yellow) channels using the filters in the enlarger, run the print through the machine, compare the numbers with a reflective meter and adjust the filters in the enlarger until that little part of the ship sampled was scientifically perfectly gray (condition of the chemicals in the print machine could shift the colors, as well as the type, age and temperature of the print paper).

On long deployments and with some time, it was fun after going through the steps above (and educational to others in the photolab who were learning the technology) to instead sample a part of the ship that was in the shade and see how much the final print was shifted in color. Then we would repeat on a part of the ship where the deep blue ocean was reflecting against the side of the ship make the rest of the print wonderfully ugly blue (Never mind the "gray" on the side of the ship just out of the shipyard was NOT the "gray" on the ship after seven months at sea).

Playing with color like this was fun. It got more serious when we created for the record prints of damaged items - from motor windings to stressed aircraft parts - where color was an important part of an investigation as to why someone was killed or injured.

I would not trust images of paint chips, unless you know how the image was made and if any controls were used. I can pull out prints from the 1980's that have been stored in a box, in cool conditions, and compare them to a print that has been hanging on a wall for 20 years (and not in direct sunlight) and not be amazed at how much that wall print has shifted over the years.

Today it is fun to snap an image with my iphone, then use the very powerful Snapseed app right on my little phone to process that image in ways we could only dream of in the analog darkroom in 1984 and turn the scene into something it was not.

So I no longer fully trust any image I see today to an honest representation of what the old Mark 1 eyeball saw at the time of the image taking. Still enjoyed looking at all the pretty pictures in this thread!

Cheers,

Bob

Aspen and Grande Gold in D&RGW parlance are the same and are the third generation of gold/yellow used on D&RGW diesels. The original photo almost looks to be an approximation of the second generation yellow DuPont 54015 used as striping on the black/yellow striped scheme though hard to tell with the poor lighting. The first generation yellow was a bit darker. I don’t have a code for that one.

The darker oranges didn’t come in until the mid ‘80s. I don’t have codes for those but I think they are close to Federal Standard 12197 International Orange. I could be way off on that guess, though.

Pushing the saturation on a badly lit or degraded image doesn’t correct the color. It merely pushes what color info is there into something it isn’t if you catch my drift. Accurate color rendering in photography is a science unto itself. Especially when it comes to lighting temperature and white balance. Bob’s post touches on that a bit. This is why color lab work doesn’t come cheap. Some cameras nowadays can compensate a bit for the type of lighting but even so, it’s a best guess approximation based on generalized parameters.

Btw, the PRR models are much to light. DGLE (PRR’s “Dark Green Locomotive Enamel”) is almost black. Though for indoor models, slightly lightening the colors may make them look better with indoor incandescent lighting but, it’s still too light. That color looks to be what is known as Brunswick Green, which isn’t DGLE, though that misconception runs rampant.

I would most certainly agree with Phil. I doubt correct color samples came anywhere near Tyco’s paint booth.

British Railways used a color they called Brunswick Green on its passenger steam locomotives. It is much lighter than PRR's DGLE.

British Racing Green is also in this family of colors.

So can any dark green using the Braunschweiger pigments be called "Brunswick Green?"

Phil Mulligan

Welcome to the thread, Bob!!! I was in the Navy around that time. Got any pics of the South Carolina? Maybe you'll see me waving to you. LOL

When we got back from the Med in '82 our ship was about six or seven different shades of underway gray total. I guess they fixed that later after it went in to Portsmouth for a COH.

The Reading didn't use any grays on their diesels so I dodged a five-inch bullet there and I'm only using the basic Irfanview program for any image manipulation.

Phil, I haven't looked at the European railroad colors yet but was actually planning to do so at some point. Perhaps some valuable paint color information can be gleaned from over there as well. I did boost the PRR F-9 photo slightly to get the painted-on stripes to glow a bit more orangish like the plastic on the Rio Grande unit. Here's where I got that one from so you can look the rest over...

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/ ... b7a4b31aa0

If you mess with the Reading's imitation gold in a like fashion there is a general difference in the shades of orange which appear. Same thing with the lightest imitation gold color on the chart also. The similar effect can be seen in both old and newer prototype photos.

I'm keeping an eye out for those Railway Express signs. If REA used three different main greens over the course of their history, that should be reflected in the color of the signage as well. This is where we could find actual physical alternate examples of a Southern green, a potential Reading green, and whatever else may have also used their original green. I'm thinking now there may be some overlap between the lettering styles and colors because this next one almost looks like the same color green as the sign I posted earlier.

So here's another of those real big REA "drift control cards". This one is the late version that even includes the white italicized font style and as far as I know, should be the proper match for REX #3735 on Page 4 of this thread. Got 450 bucks plus shipping lying around not doing anything, Eric? It's listed on eBag right now...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Large-Antique- ... 3484924687

The pigment originally developed way back in the day was copper chloride. That has changed over the years to achieve the same results.

Do a Google image search and you’ll see a wide shade range of dark greens called Brunswick Green. Seems everybody has their own version. There is a British standard, much like our Fed Specs, for that color. That could be the same, close to or what the formulation was based on for British railway equipment. I’ve done zero research on British colors.

IIRC, British Racing Green is a little lighter than the classic Brunswick Green but definitely in the same family by my eye.

Start talking about European colors, guys, and I'm sure we can get this thread up to at least ten pages, maybe even more!!! LOL Don't they have one of those Southern railways over there, also?

Here's an older Railway Express Agency sign. Way darker green, Omaha Orange, 93-082 Orange, Plate #29, a good-luck-on-the-red, and what appears to be a either a cream or the lightest imitation gold color, 93-242 Yellow.

We can also play guess the caliber with this one. I'll say .45...

Mentioning newer fleet colors up above reminded me how glad I am the Reading went out in 1976 but only as far as searching for paint colors goes. The difference between the amount of available fleet colors from 1964 to 1983 is absolutely astounding, at least from the perspective of these two listings.

The Ford fleet color selection from 1964...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcoded ... et&rows=50

The Chrysler fleet color selection from 1983...

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcoded ... et&rows=50

Many of those are the newer polychromatic colors, however.

Reading guys will instantly recognize this, another confirmed case of the pale imitation gold, 93-242 Yellow, Plate #13 along with a '74 Dodge Dart out in the afternoon sun...

What did Geep say about lemon yellow again and like Photo Mate Bob mentioned, there is no substitute for the good ol' Mk I Eyeball... LOL

While it was there, did an increase on the saturation level of the 5607 chip to the same point as I did with the Tyco Rio Grande F-9...

Bad angle on this pic but 93-5248 also looks to be the shade of yellow on our license plates, Geep. It's either that or 224. I'll be checking on this one further.

And yes, #2753 does indeed appear to be finished in a slightly darker shade compared to the other Green Machines. Why was that? Probably just due to the uniqueness of the job. Overall, I'd say that one was the darkest, the brand new units from EMD are in the middle, and the Reading shop repaints, the lightest.

Yeah well, I liked the older plates better anyway. The results there are inconclusive since it's a printed reflective vinyl laminate over the sheet metal. Looks good from the kitchen window when I'm making up a pitcher of refreshing home-brewed iced tea or if someone wants to put fancy resto-mod herald decals on their Reading paint-inspired diesel. LOL

What's really flippy about the lemon juice bottle is the pop-up insert in the cap. Guess what? It's ever-so-slightly darker and more greenish than the 1317 chip, right where it should be for the '73 Reading scheme.

HMMMM, this one is really starting to look like a standard color combo in a product designer's paper brain pocket handbook or something...

https://www.designwizard.com/blog/desig ... ombination

Now there's an annex to the bunny hole complex of colors I'll bet you weren't thinking about, Eric. LOL

Here's a picture of that and an enhanced version of another Gottschall photo, this one of an earlier-repowered Baldwin VO-1000 #2711, repainted at Reading. Upped the saturation, took out some red until I got it out of the clouds, then fine-tuned the green and blue. It looks okay for now but I'm still not completely happy with it. I might try another and edit it later...

If you guys haven't noticed by now, I am a serial post editor. Been like that ever since I was in school doing like five drafts of a composition before I handed it in a couple days late. It's even worse on the internet but I glad this board allows me to do it. Not to change content but to mostly fix small errors I may find and whatnot. Been doing a lot of hit-and-run posting in this thread between other stuff so I'll be going back through it again after this one and just to see if I missed anything.

Four-color combos are little more involved and that's what the two older REA signs are...

https://www.canva.com/learn/100-color-combinations/

A scientist, no, but I have been known to get paid to be a landscape designer. In that line of work, not only do I have to deal with both bold and subtile multiple color combinations, but differences in form and texture as well.

Looking at the appropriate and slightly-enhanced PaintRef 1969 DuPont chip pages together, you can get a sense of what green colors would look good with the primary-like lemony yellow, the two that are the closer to the truest secondary greens, 5316 and 6202. The 5800 and 1317 off-greens would go better with whites and golds just like on a Southern engine. Might be difficult to tell 6202 and 1317 apart at first glance depending on viewing conditions as well...

Axalta, PPG, and Sherwin-Williams fleet color design tool pages...

https://www.axalta.com/liquidindustrial ... tools.html

https://us.ppgrefinish.com/PPG-Refinish/Color-Tools

https://www.sherwin-automotive.com/flee ... nformation

If anyone out there is looking to create a new traditionally modern scheme for your short line, tourist, or even model railroad, well, there you go. Here's your red oxide primed blank canvas to help get you started... LOL

Actually, now I'm beginning to see it's a lighter shade of the 046 Morat Green but no matter what I do, I can't eliminate 6202...