WABASH blue paint: Can anybody produce an original paint chip or PMS match for the WABASH blue used on the postwar Budd domes (window piers and letterboard)? Has any WAB passenger car been restored in recent years? Is the recently restored WAB E-unit at VMT in Roanoke a good match? Were the WAB heavyweight passenger cars painted the same blue?

N&W PEVLER blue was a completely different and ugly color, I believe.

AFAIK, the very blah PEVLER BLUE (that I am NOT looking for) was used on the N&W diesels in the 70's.

Try PPG HSL933222

This is what the NS Wabash Heritage unit is painted with.

EBL

The Wabash Railroad Historical Society's paint guy, Terry Schwartzwalder, maintains that the original late 40's/early 50's blue paint, as used on the E-units and the Blue Bird train, was very dark, almost black in color. I've inspected the Pullman sample of Wabash Blue at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois...and Terry's estimation of Wabash Blue is even darker than it still.

I'll see if a paint chip can be obtained from Terry, if you can message me your address.

The Monticello museum has several original Wabash artifacts painted blue, and each shade appears a little different to the naked eye.

Bottom line is, I think (as do several others) "Wabash Blue" is whatever Wabash had in-stock at the Decatur paint shop at the time.

The less we talk about Pevler Blue, the better IMHO. Just sayin'.


James Holzmeier
WRHS

Not being a paint authority, I always thought of Wabash as Flag Blue.

You might also want to pursue color-match references to Duco 254-81456

One of the old modeler's references said that a close match was 9 parts of Floquil R-50 "Dark Blue" and 1 part of "Engine Black". (That might not be 'dark blue' the way classic PRR DGLE/Brunswick is 'dark green', but it will sure be a dark color!) While Floquil is no longer made, I suspect that modelers may have generated many colorimeter and Pantone references to these colors, so they could be easily matched in a modern formulation and then mixed in proportion.

I would assume it would be the same as the locomotives. From the Wabash Historical Society:

In 1950 the Wabash was using paint manufactured by the Cook Paint & Varnish Co. The Cook color numbers used were dark gray enamel: 802-A-194; blue enamel: 802-L-94; and silver aluminum: 100-A-395. The silver aluminum did not hold up well after it had been cleaned numerous times with a cleaning solution, so by late 1952 the railroad decided to replace it with a medium gray. By 1954, the Wabash was using DuPont Duco paints. Dark gray: 254-3153; medium gray: 254-34793; blue: 254-81456; black Dulux 88-762; and gray suede Dulux 83-503 for cab and hood interior. Cab interior was changed to green dulux 68-24557 after 2-57. On 7-29-57, the three outside colors were changed from Dupont Duco to Dulux. Dark gray: 83-3153; medium gray: 83-34793; and blue: 83-5370.

I'd compare those with the PPG color mentioned above and see if that floats yer boat. PPG did a lot of research to get the heritage colors right so it's going to be as correct as possible considering today's formulations and how the original paint was mixed and applied way back when.

Those old numbers are usually useless. Even if the formulas are still known, they call out pigments which are no longer made.


How did you get chip numbers for the NS heritage units? We need several colors they have already researched.

PPG supplied the paint only for the GEs. I was involved with the proposed, but not done, P&WV unit and have worked with them on few other rail projects. If any of the colors you're looking for were on the GEs, I may be able to put you in contact with someone in the technical side of PPG or find out for you. They've been helpful in the past. Shoot me a PM or email with the ones you want and whatever very general project details you may want to divulge. I don't recall off the top of my head who supplied the paint for the EMDs but I might be able to find a contact there, too.

As for the old numbers and pigments, sometimes the lab can cross reference the old numbers (all I had to start with were old DuPont numbers) or spectrograph & tweak if you have a good reference sample and come up with very suitable matches with current formulations.

Direct from PPG Industrial Coatings R/D, the NS-approved Wabash unit colors:

Dark Gray 308500
Dark Blue 933222
Black 917954
Gray (Silver) 301860
Yellow 919807

Hope that helps.

My first suggestion would be to go back an read the post "Another Restoration at Monticello" from June 16 of 2015, posted by Les Beckman.

From there I will add: The paint colors used on the NS Wabash heritage unit are based on the colors Monticello researched and used on our F7A 1189, back in 1992. At that time, the 83-5370 blue was still an active fleet color for DuPont, as I had a local jobber look it up in their system. Of all the color numbers used on the Wabash diesels, it was the only one still active at that time. We had a quart of it mixed up, then compared that to what was still on the locomotive. We know 1189 was not repainted until after the '64 merger with N&W, and then they only painted the lower panel solid blue, leaving the dark gray upper body. So, we sanded down through the layers of paint, uncovered the original number, and good samples of as-built blue paint. This as-built blue paint matched the quart sample from DuPont, so we were satisfied this was the correct blue for this locomotive. The dark gray was matched to a good sample found on the bottom of the sun shades over the outsides of the cab windows. The late George Rust of DuPont helped with the red for the flag logo, and the gold for the lettering.

We provided actual samples of these colors to NS for their heritage unit.

Now, to the original question: Is this the right color for the Wabash Domes? I can't answer that, as I've not seen a painting diagram for those cars, or any of their cars that listed a DuPont paint number. Not saying that info isn't out there, but we don't have it.

We do, however, have a Wabash heavyweight with original paint still on it. Sanding down through the layers, it has on it four different shades of blue.

As noted by others, the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois, has the Arthur Dubin collection, and in it are actual samples of paint from Pullman, with Wabash Banner Blue being one of them. It is very dark, and would likely match the really dark blue shown in the first photo in the sanded area of the end door. In comparing directly at the library, the dark blue we've used on our F7 is slightly lighter than the Pullman sample, and the Dark blue provided by Terry Schwartzwalder (as shown in the second photo) is a little too dark.

What light source are you using to do those color comparisons at the library?

I hope not just overhead fluorescents, which might throw the color balance seen under 'normal' viewing conditions off.

As I noted, the lighting there is terrible for comparing colors. Yes, nothing but harsh overhead fluorescents. The only way to really see the difference in photos was to look at them from that shallow angle. In all the direct overhead shots, they all look nearly the same. At any rate, we do have the pantone books, and at some point I'll try to get in there to see if there is a near match to one of the pantone colors. (If they'll let me bring them in... technically you can't have anything in there but a pencil and pad of paper.) Having them scanned with paint-matching scanners would also require special permission from their conservator, which I have not had the time to pursue.

Kent

Find somebody with a Munsell book, often these colors started as Munsell, i.e. Were chosen as one of the stock chips out of the Munsell book. Munsell has more colors (every color, just intermediate ones are not in the book). It is not a subset curated for graphiic design in primt media, as Pantone is.

Quality depends on the fluoresecents. They are getting quite good (just in time to be replaced with LED. Fluorescents are still better.)

The proper light for matching colors to be viewed outside is sunlight. Hopefully, the library has windows. Take the samples over to the window for comparison.

The biggest problem with matching colors under artificial light is metamerism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamerism_(color)

Because of the difference between additive and subtractive pigments, colors that appear to match under some light sources look vastly different under others.