My father worked for the C&EI for 36 years and I’m making dioramas (C&EI cabooses) for two nephews. They arrived the other day and the color seems off to me (I worked there too for a few summers). Anyway, in trying to correctly identify the proper color, I googled my fingers off yesterday without success. Isn’t there a website that 1. Identifies or names the actual color for rail cars and 2. Provides the modeling color, manufacturer of or mixing ratio for that color? In other words, Railroad “ABC” has “Fire Engine Red” for their boxcars… How do I mix that color? What ratios? What paint manufacturer? I have found color chart comparisons among paint manufacturers but nothing that identifies rail lines paint colors and what corresponding model paints exist (mixing ratios). Need a little direction, thanks.
PastaDNA,
Someone else might chime in, but to my knowledge no comprehensive list of of company colors exist. Your best shot is checking to see if there is a C&EI historical society or Facebook group (Check for Yahoo & Google groups as well). These folks may be able to help you. As an example, the PRRT&HS (Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society) has some actual PRR paint chips.
Oh, one other thing. Pure color matches don’t usually translate well to model size. For instance, HO scale is one 1:87, or one inch equals seven foot three inches. So if you were viewing the real thing from around twenty feet away the same perspective would require that your eyes be only three inches from the model. Models also do not benefit from environmental factors like natural sunlight, or being viewed through atmosphere/haze. Because of this, manufacturers often lighten their colors by a few shades to compensate.
Good luck with your search and your project!
Yes, there is a C&EI Historical Society: http://www.ceihs.org/
Also useful, this link: http://www.danvillejct.org/
Trust your eye on the color, but also consider than some colors faded quickly. Take a look in the spray paint section for something that’s close.
Thanks for the input… Will follow-up.
Thank you. I will check it out.
As Broadway Lion continually says about colors, don’t worry about color matching . . . . colors fade. My layout is in the garage and sunlight can’t get to it but fluorescent lighting does and it fades colors too.
I have an E7B that has all kinds of goodies in side it and to prevent them from being seen through the windows I painted them flat black. Yesterday I pulled the shell to check on things and there are faded light black spots behind each window.
I over lit my garage to help my fading eyesight with fluorescent lighting and it fades the scenery too, over time everything fades including eyesight.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
Thanks, good information.
Thank you.
There were colors that were soposed to be used but paint got mixed on the spot except at the factory so the colors could be way off.
Good to know…
OK, I’ll say it again. Colors out on the railroad fade and are weathered very quickly.
Colose enough is close enough, paint shop perfect is a pain in the paint brush.
And it does not last long enough for you to take a pictue of it anyway.
ROAR
I’m no expert on matching paint colors and I’d be the first to tell you that I’m a poor color judge or coordinator. But, that being said, I’m told that the color will often depend on the shop the piece of equipment was painted in on the prototype railroad. Further, there are some instances on the prototype railroad, where the colors were not necessarily exactly matched anyway. As an example, the red (vermilloin) stripe on the Chessie System locomotives (1970’s, yellow). I’m told that the paint shop used whatever red that they had on hand.
the other comments about lighting, fading, and also weathering, make it difficult to match colors exactly.
This is all quite interesting and I was not aware of most of this information. Glad I posted the question
Another point is that the “correct” paint might not look right under our artificially-lit layouts. I think the Accu-flex “Pullman Green” paint was probably the closest commercial paint ever made to matching the real color, but on a passenger car it looks way too dark - virtually black. It’s often better to go a shade or two lighter than the “correct” color (a tip from our military modelling cousins).