Just yesterday, I bought a little 8oz can of flat black Rustoleum latex. It was $5. I could buy 2 of them, for a whopping 16oz, the same price as the 32oz can.
And same here. A gallon of Imron is about $115. Four quarts is $344, at $86 a quart.
CP 6538.
The Word is this locomotive was NEVER repainted.
1980
http://www.mountainrailway.com/Roster%20Archive/CP%206500/CP%206538.htm
Retired July 1985. Photo August 1985.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1367316
Thank You.
To give some idea how paints have improved since then, that locomotive was built (and presumably painted) in 1955, so when it was retired it was 30 years. There were locomotives painted in the BNSF ‘executive’ scheme still in service relatively recently, with relatively good unweathered paint; those have to be comparable in longevity…
It never had to withstand the Florida Sun. The Florida Sun and the Florida enviornment do wonders to shorten paint’s longevity.
But it did endure the harsh Canadian winter, and the rapid, dramatic temperature changes we can experience. Expansions and contractions are not easy on metal and paint.
CN’s locomotives built during the early to mid-1990s (late Dash-8’s, early Dash-9’s and SD70/75’s) have experienced a lot more rapid fading and peeling paint than older units. This must have been due to a change in the paint formula, CN’s colours and logo have remained constant since 1961.
Personal observation based on automotive paints. Starting in the late 70’s and early 80’s the manufacturers began using form of paint ‘clear coat’. The color coat goes on and is then followed by a clear coat. When the paint job is new it has a great shine and luster - as the paint ages, so does the clear coat to one extent or another - in many cases the UV light from sunlight appears to ‘sunburn’ the clear coat. Like many cases of sunburn in humans, the sun burnt clear coat does its own imitation by blistering and peeling.
I believe that the EPA enacted various regulations that eliminated the use of various solvents and other chemicals that were part of ‘old time’ paints since many of them had cancer causing properties for the workers involved in the painting process. It has taken the paint industry a number of years to improve their products to give them longer lives with the revised formulations.
While railroad locomotive and car painting is not done to the finish standards expected in the automotive world - the paint vendors have to service both markets.
One observation I’ve noted in both applications: some red paints tend to fade badly, more so than other colors.
The orange has always looked to me, as a descendant of the GN livery of the 1960’s. As if BNSF acknowledges that GN is the dominant road. Just as the UP, C&O, and NW, are apparent with the UP, CSX, and NS.