I am new on this forum, but really enjoy it. I have a question which I hope is okay to ask (I also asked it on another ICRR forum).
I have a Proto 2000 ICRR E8/9A unit in ICRR orange and brown colors, factory painted. I also have a set of the “City of New Orleans” streamlined orange and brown passenger cars from IHC. And I also have an ICRR E7A&B (both powered) from Broadway Limited in IC orange and brown, factory painted (which I have up for auction on eBay because my layout isn’t big enough to support all three locomotives).
Here’s my question … all of the orange and brown color schemes are a different shade! The IHC and the BLI locomotives are closest to each other, but still clearly different shades. The Proto 2000 is a very different shade of orange and brown. Can someone tell me which of these 3 mfg is the closest to the prototype ICRR orange and brown color scheme?
Thanks very much for any help or advice anyone has to offer!
Thanks. I have looked at several web sites, but unfortunately web colors vary a lot depending on monitors. Are ICRR Brown and Orange avaliable as commecial paints (such as Floquil type paints)?
Simple answer: don’t worry about it. Yes, the IC had painting specs and a specific DuPont color referenced for the two colors. Yes, the IC took pride in their passenger fleet, and kept their cars cleaner and more freshly painted than most other roads.
BUT, “matching colors” is a false proposition in model railroading. There are several things that affect what “color” people see: time, distance, humidity, cloud cover, season, smog, the eye itself, wet or dry paint, newness of paint, dirt, fading, etc, not to mention the whole idea of “scale color drift”. And add to that the fact that paint mixing is NOT a precise science, and that every batch of paint is slightly different than the other (that’s why paint companies call their paint chips “drift cards”; the paint color “drifts” from shade to shade. An approved batch is one that doesn’t drift too far)
So unless you want to model a completely pristine set of IC chocolate & orange equipment (there’s no such thing as “CoNO equipment”; it’s all part of the IC passenger roster, and indistinguishable from say, equipment used on the “Land O’ Corn”), I wouldn’t worry too much about different shades of C&O in my trainset. If you ARE worried about it, the best way to solve the problem is to buy all undecs and paint them yourself to ensure an even color. Polly Scale makes paint for the C&O scheme.
Paint fades, especially a light color such as the orange used on IC passenger trains. I have several videos of IC passenger trains that were shot using color film in the 1940’s to 1960’s, and there were noticeable variations in color.
Avoid IHC locomotives unless you’re looking only for static display models – they do not run very well because they have horribly cheap mechanisms. The paint scheme is good, but they are lacking in detail.