Can anyone direct me on where to find a paint and lettering diagram for Reading NMl cabooses, original red scheme? Online search turns up zilch.

It's on Page 170 of the caboose book, Eric. I thought the trucks, underframe, end platforms, and such were the darker structure brown but apparently they were the same freight car color as the roof. This is the original NMl lettering layout with the smaller road numbers which were increased in height by two inches later on...

Many thanks for the image. I'm guessing the next chore is to draw the lettering. I'm usually stuck scaling from photos unless anyone happens to have the appropriate Rwading lettering set drawings (hint, hint).

Something looks a little off on that drawing, Eric, so here's a closer look at the diagram for the bobbers...

On the NMl drawing, I'm getting 9", 5", 7", and 5" instead...

Yeah, I thought for sure that 8" might be suspect. I'll get a tape measure on the car side to be sure. Everything has to squeeze under the belt rail so it'll be lower than what's on the bobbers. At this time, I'm going to assume that the width of "READING" is the same as on the bobbers but I'll check by scaling photos.

Seems to me the car number is above end doors. Are those 1" tall? They look pretty tiny.

The end numbers seem to be about an inch taller compared to the top of the doorframe or perhaps 1.5 times the width of the top of the doorframe, centered directly above said doorframe. The composites had smaller numbers placed on the tops of the doorframes themselves so they were apparently dealing with either the rivets around the doorframe or joints in the sheathing while looking for an appropriate smooth surface to apply the end numbers in the same approximate location. LOL

Here's a good pic of NMj #92830 on the WK&S that should help along with a couple of others in the photostream...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/n8myc/45905829274

I ran across that image a while back but didn't notice the number above the door. kinda looks like 2" but I'll scale it to be sure. Thanks

Heck, I forgot those numbers were even there to begin with. The end numbers on #92830 do seem match up well with other older pics in the book, though.