A Traveller's Rest car in Portland, OR is being prepped for a NP two-tone green paint scheme, however, I can't seem to find reliable paint codes for us to order Imron with. I've heard too many suggestions of using modeler's paint or the like, because most of the time they don't match the real deal. Many models rely on other variations of brightness and colors to appear more realistic from a birds-eye view.

I have contacted the NPRHA. Would anyone have or know of another place that might have official NP schematics and paint codes?

Try Eric Hopp at http://www.erixrailcar.com/.

He had some cans of NP Lowey paint that he made drift cards from.

-Hudson

Dupont has formula records of historic paint colours. They have given me paint numbers in the past. Sorry, I do not have a phone number. It has been years since I contacted them last. I suggest you poke around their website.

Forget using model numbers. What looks right on a model doesn't necessarily translate into the correct prototype formula.

You might check in with the NP Railroad Museum in Toppenish.
http://www.nprymuseum.org/

Thank you for the replies -- I have established contact with a few people, haven't got any answers yet, but the more this can be researched the better.

The Nothern Pacific Railway Historical Association http://www.nprha.org is working on creating new drift cards. I think they are still researching the passenger colors. They are having their convention in July in Spokane (in conjunction with the SP&S Hist. Soc.). If that data is not useful, then reconstruction from old paint codes would be the logical alternative.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Here's what we've got so far! More roof and body work before we paint, stripe, and letter the rest of it.

Big thanks to NPRHA for helping with the paint project!

Thought I'd update this thread with the completed paint job.

Wow! Just wow! Does that bring back memories. One hot, dry summer in the early 1950s one of my daily pleasures as a little boy was to wander down to the depot in town and watch the North Coast Limited roll through. What a beautiful job you've done! Thank you for resurrecting memories for me.

F40PHR231:
Could you pass along the color codes that you ended up with? We're getting close to the paint stage on the Minneapolis Club (CB&Q 483, 4-1 Obs Lounge from the NCL), so it would be a great help to have reliable color information. The Traveler's Rest looks great!

Looks great. Can you post some inside pictures? Who owns the car now?

Oooooh, now that'll be a nice car to see in fresh NCL paint! Unfortunately the paint shop who worked with the NPRHA refuses to give up the codes, which is understandable since they contributed their time and resources to develop a match. PM me if you still want to purchase paint from them directly, they may work out a deal with a local paint source in your area because Imron is usually prohibited from domestic shipping.

I tried digging around for high-resolution photos of the interior, but here's what I've got for now. The car is owned by the Friends of SP 4449.

Old paint codes usually are worthless today because they call for now banned heavy metal pigments. The best you can do is get a computer match to an old drift card or to part of the car that has been protected fron weathering and fading.

For example, almost all old railroad green paints contained chrome yellow pigment. It chemically is lead chromate. Enough said?

Modern organic pigments frequently fade differently than the old pigments they replaced. So what may be a perfect match today, may fade differently than old paint on the car.