Do any of the model paint companies have the two-tone greens of the North Coast Limited? Does anyone know the names of the two greens?
thanks!
Loewy scheme “NP Dark Green” and “NP Light Green” adopted in 1953 (or '54) for the NCL. Accu-paint makes both, although they’re not always available; also Scalecoat I and II; Badger Modelflex has the light green. There’s some debate over which, if any, of the light greens is accurate.
Great question. Manufacturers of locos and cars do not agree on colors from what I can tell. My NCL has 8 shades of green. 4 makers times light green and times dark green. [V]
The Badger Modelflex #16-77 says “Northern Pacific LT. green” but it is by no stretch of the imagination any shade of NP light green. Having used the paint for both NP units and two of my freelance roads I believe they meant it to say “Northern Pacific FT green”. In my opinion it matches the NP freight pine tree scheme diesels better than any of the passenger schemes old or new. Also if they were doing it for the passenger why would they make only the dark green and not the matching light color?
The problem matching the light green color is that it oxidized so many of the “paint chips” that people are matching with are off units that have been out in the sun & weather for over 30 years. I favor the light color that Stewart used on the first run of their F5AB sets.
See http://www.badgerairbrush.com/images/RailRoadChart.jpg. The 16-77 caption is “Northern Pacific Light Green (1947)”. Now, I agree, that’s nowhere near ‘light’, no matter what the caption says. On the other hand, IIRC from my reading of the various NP forums and NP Color Pictorials, NP’s FTs all had a black base paint in the Pine Tree scheme, while later Fs were very dark green. So Modelflex 16-77 as “FT Green” doesn’t make much sense either, although “Freight Green” does.
Dunno what goes on in the minds of model paint suppliers wrt their labels.
Not to mention the artificial light and primer color used on our models. My Stewart NP F3s are black in natural light, matching P2K Canoe Geeps; the yellow on both series is weak.
Accu-paint dark and light greens work for me on Loewy TOFC trailers.
Watching NP F freight engines in the 60’s, I have never seen a green one(in any shade). They did ‘simplify’ the ‘pine tree’ in the late 60’s on re-paints. The NP ‘light green’ has been argued about over the years. Even the ‘real’ passenger cars varied, as did the GN ‘orange’ and it could be seen on long trains. If any of the freight units got a ‘dark green’ - I would love to see the pictures!
Jim
Frankly, so would I! Although there are allusions to F units painted very dark green in a few books and on forums (and which I’m also guilty of!), this statement, from a knowlegeable poster to the NPTellTale yahoo group on 26 Nov 2002, better reflects what I saw of NP freight units in Seattle in the 50s and 60s:
"NP F units only carried 3 paint schemes during their service on NP. Two of
them were the passenger schemes of two toned green. No FTs ever carried this
scheme, only the black and yellow freight scheme which was the third paint
scheme. There is a reference to an oft debated solid green scheme with a pine
tree nose. This was referred to as the NP-F4 scheme. No FT was known to have
carried this scheme.
“Within the freight schemes there were 5 variations referred to as the NP-F1
thru NP-F5. All had variation in lettering or pine trees. Only the F4 was
reputed to have not been black as stated earlier. This may have been a very
short lived experiment.”
I think the situation with respect to perceived colors will only get worse. Case in point: in a recent “In Color” publication on the GN, many of the photos show sharpening artifacts along edges and a rather aggressive use of the saturation slider, both indicating poor post-scan Photoshop skills. No way that Omaha Orange was ever as red as shown in that book, yet some will eventually point to those photos as evidence for a non-existent EB color.
That is what I meant. FT standing for “freight” not the EMD FT unit.
That is interesting because mine are definitely green as are my Atlas canoe RS units. Anytime someone at the club calls them black I pull them up next to some D&RGW units. Then it is obvious they aren’t black. I’ve always wanted to put them next to a Pennsy Brunswick green and see which is darker, but no one here has any Pennsy equipment.
I agree with the yellow stripe. The only place it is strong enough is where the nose paint overlaps the side paint so the yellow for about 1/8" is yellow enough.
I was not aware the NP every used real black for their locos. I have heard the dark green color is supposedly the color of a pine tree in the moon light. Shows me what I get for trusting a paint scheme put on a model. Of course the old Athearn NP green was so far off anyone with half an eye for color could tell they were wrong even from black & white photos.
For the Lowey dark green I do like the ScaleCoat #61. One has to be certain to get it shaken up very well, otherwise the blue ends up in the bottom and not on the paint. When that happens the paint comes out almost Army Green (gag). I had a friend who did this and blamed me for giving him the wrong paint!
Thanx guys, I found a place that has the AccuPaint NP dark and light, and will give that a try. Sounds like it isn’t too critical, but I hate mixing colors (I never mix enough) so if these are close they will be “close enough” [:)]