I've been doing some thinking recently, (dangerous, I know right?) but I have a more basic question for those of you working on older equipment, and that is how do you find paint codes for different rolling stock/locomotives when painting? Do you eyeball it? Do you contact RR's who may still have the codes tucked away on file? Is there a book you use? I would go to my local hobby manufacturer but they usually list paint like "CNW Green" or "Union Pacific yellow" which as you can tell isn't very helpful. Any help on this would be appreciated, Thanks in advance!

There's a long-running topic on RYPN that happens to be "sticky" at the top of the "Topics" list on the Interchange. That topic covers many of the questions you have. It also includes quite a few paint codes, some references to modern codes, and other things painty. Eric Schlentner has collected RR paint color information from RYPN and other sources in a document that he has posted to the bigeproductions web site. That document was recently updated; see page 6 of the RYPN Interchange thread.

Every once in a while, I will stumble across some paint information. At the recent Chicagoland memorabelia meet, I remember seeing a pamphlet which included, on the back page, a set of perhaps 10 paint chips, color names, and color codes for, I think, Southern railroad. It is unfortunate that I didn't pick it up, because Eric's document is short of Southern RR paint entries...

Use great caution if taking color advice from model railroad equipment and/or model manufacturers and/or model paint manufacturers. I know of some models manufactured and painted based on historical-society-provided big-box store paint swatches which were chosen based on a member's "memory" of the colors. The models look very odd when compared to models from other manufacturers and to Kodachrome slides showing similar prototype equipment.

- Bob

Enter if you dare, 'Dude...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=44048

There's a Grand Trunk entry in there somewhere. LOL

Here’s the direct link to the cross reference: https://bigeprod.com/literature/rrPres/paintRef.pdf

Latest revision was 4/21. I haven’t counted lately but there are around 2,000 entries.

The defining paint-related document for a railroad equipment manufacturer is generally called an Apparatus Instruction (AI). In the rare instance that this type of documentation becomes available in a collection it should immediately be scanned and preserved. It is one kind of document that applies to almost every product the manufacturer builds for railroad customers.

PC

I've painted about 5 Locomotives and several passenger cars. I have found that most of the old paint codes are dead. If you have sample plates from the railroad you are trying to copy they can be color shot with a camera then tweaked if necessary. At the Western Pacific Railroad Museum we had to find original paint from a place on the locomotive that had not been faded by UV light. The WP green is a hard color to match, their are no model paints by the hobby industry that even came close to the color. We have a paint store in Reno, NV that works with us to get the right color created then we have a modern code for future use. So far the WP orange and new image green are the two that we have codes for. I have created codes for my NYC 10/6 sleeper starting with hobby paints to get close. The color really matched well once the paint faded a little.

What previous posts have said about old paint codes mostly being dead is a fact. I'm not sure when all that changed, but within the last 20 years.

An example is the N&W "Pevler Blue" that was applied beginning in 1966. Internal correspondence states that it was "about two shades darker than Wabash blue" which really helps replicate it a lot! N&WHS has no drift cards of the blue in its collection. When NS came to N&WHS about getting a blue to match for its heritage unit, we had lots of paint manufacturers names and numbers, none came out blue, we were told that several mixes to old numbers looked more like UPS brown.

The only solution was to get one of the Scotchlite herald decals which we have unused and still covered with tape and peel some of the tape off to get a scan. Now, remember these are pieces over 50 years old, but never used. When they were scanned, I suspect the light from the scanner slightly penetrated the thin blue paint and hit the reflective gold, therefore skewing the color lighter. The NS heritage unit, to those of us who saw freshly painted units and cabooses is too light.

I am in the process of finding a paint color to properly match the blue right now for a preservation project and hope to resolve it within the next month or so. If someone does have an "N&W No. 23 Blue" paint chip in their collection, we'd love to add it to our collection or at least photograph it and get a current color match.

Best
Ken Miller

Ken - see if you can get a sample of Axalta 3.5HG+42P3067. That’s from RMNE on a N&W color match. Turns out it was the same as BFI blue which when fresh is a darker blue.

Wabash blue and Bando blue were the same color. It’s actually very dark when fresh. If Pevler was even darker, you’re getting a little closer to black. I have an Imron number and an older PPG color number for these. The Imron number may still be good with Axalta, the PPG number may have to be tweaked with current formulations and a sample to compare to.

As I always preach, if you have a good sample, send it to the coating manufacturer’s color lab to have it scanned. There they can scan it and adjust the pigment mix to get it dead on.

Sometimes you can sand down to a good layer on a part. Finish sand it with 600 grit and put mineral oil on it to see what it looks like.

If they weren’t pricey, you could try to match by eye with Pantone swatches and have the swatch scanned.

Also be aware that the color could vary a bit from batch to batch in the paint shop.

Don’t use model paints for a match. They look good with indoor lighting but outside is another story. Using the Bando blue as an example, on a model it would look too dark. Model paints of dark colors are generally too light. And you don’t know what they matched it to if anything. One manufacturer’s color won’t match another’s of the same color. And don’t even think you can use your computer to compare colors unless it has a specialized, professionally calibrated monitor.

And, when anyone matches a color, please, please, please forward the info to me so I can update the cross reference. That goes for locos, cars, trolleys, structures, whatever.

Here you go, Eric...

New York, New Haven, Hartford Pullman Green, Ditzler/PPG 41033

New York, New Haven, Hartford Railway Green, Ditzler/PPG 40953

There are quite a few of them in this mid-fifties Ditzler fleet catalog, including the older green and red Railway Express Agency codes which I haven't got around to posting yet. {wink, wink}

And if you're wondering what Bando Blue is, break it down: B and O Blue.

Phil Mulligan

Citation needed…

Also from Page 35 of Ditzler Form 5756 dated December of 1956, Eric. I can't tell you yet how these two Ditzler/PPG codes may correlate with the New Haven Pullman codes of 70-78 and 70-93 but according to the Pullman Paint and Lettering Notebook, 70-93 is the same color as 70-115 Erie dark green and 70-117 Northern Pacific Loewy dark green.

The book also states that 70-78 is yellower than 70-117 which would make sense if 70-78 is indeed Pullman Green.

Over in the Reading thread, I currently have 70-117 pegged as DuPont 93-23967 Dodge Truck Dark Green (City Green) so we'll see where that goes. LOL

How did you come up with those PPG numbers? Documentation please….

As an aside, the cross reference is set up in a simple Excel file. I can search it in limited ways for crosses for other numbers or manufacturers but not as handy as having it in a relational database. That’s a “maybe someday” project. I never expected it to get as large as it has. So if you have a specific question, I can search it quicker than going through it line by line looking for matches.

Until you get a little further into the Appalachians, Phil, then it becomes "Banjo Blue".

Yeah, I know, that was pretty poor.

Conrail's should've been called "Band-Aid Blue".