Recalling Colors

[ambluco]

There was an interesting color test done on the Diesel Detailers Facebook page recently. It wasn't a real test, it just worked out that way. A person wanted to match BN paint and wanted to know an RAL number. People obliged and a list of number resulted.

Of course, on these forums and so many others, people always "recall" the railroad color being talked about it. And when manufacturers mess up, we hear "it should have more orange" or "it should be less blue", etc.

Here is the graphic representing BN green that people picked: BN Green

Notice how all the "experts" vary so wildly in their answers. And the reality might be a color not even chosen. This also means if a manufacturer gets their color within said range of greens, they'll make a group of people happy and at least a group of people on either side happy who consider it close enough.

[edwardsutorik]

Dec 26, 2023 6:56:27 GMT -8 ambluco said:

And the reality might be a color not even chosen.

I'd recommend going with that one. If a manufacturer has to pick just one.

Alternately, I'd recommend going with what all the other manufacturers chose, if they are all similar to each other. Of course, with something like GN's Omaha Orange, you'll then likely end up with a color that's too red. Hence this approach should probably defer to the first concept.


Ed

[Baikal]

Dec 26, 2023 6:56:27 GMT -8 ambluco said:

There was an interesting color test done on the Diesel Detailers Facebook page recently. It wasn't a real test, it just worked out that way. A person wanted to match BN paint and wanted to know an RAL number. People obliged and a list of number resulted.

Of course, on these forums and so many others, people always "recall" the railroad color being talked about it. And when manufacturers mess up, we hear "it should have more orange" or "it should be less blue", etc.

Here is the graphic representing BN green that people picked: BN Green

Notice how all the "experts" vary so wildly in their answers. And the reality might be a color not even chosen. This also means if a manufacturer gets their color within said range of greens, they'll make a group of people happy and at least a group of people on either side happy who consider it close enough.

Prototype showing a pretty wide range of greens in a single photo:

I've never seen any proto BN close to the dark RAL 6002 or olive RAL 6017 on your link though.

[edwardsutorik]

Dec 26, 2023 10:52:36 GMT -8 Baikal said:

Prototype showing a pretty wide range of greens in a single photo:

I've never seen any proto BN close to the dark RAL 6002 or olive RAL 6017 on your link though.

Yes. I believe it was mostly the F's where the BN green meandered. And I wonder whether that happened to the F9's, which I think BN thought of as "keepers", as opposed to "expendables" (F7's and F3's).

I've gone through a lot of BN photos, and it is very rare to find a mismatched color.

Note also that the F is freshly painted, and the others are not.

That said, I am sure there was an official BN green. It was, after all, chosen by a real design firm: Lippincott & Margulies. NOT some guy who went down to the hardware store and picked something that looked close enough (see above photo).



Ed

[wagnersteve]

December 26, 2023
starting 5:38 p.m., EST

This post will get away from the Burlington Northern, but is still on the subject of the colors of some railroads' rolling stock.

At least for much of its last decades as an independent railroad, the Delaware & Hudson certainly bought colors most modelers would call "boxcar red" or "oxide red" made by a variety of paint manufacturers. In some cases small lettering on a car would indicate the type of paint used. As its financial condition deteriorated, sometimes how even locos were painted depended on how much of which color was available. The most notorious case was the D&H's GE U23B 2311. When it needed repainting, the paint shop was badly short of blue paint and painted the loco nearly entirely in gray, with a blue stripe and some lettering: fans dubbed it the "Gray Ghost". The Canadian fans probably called it the "Grey Ghost".

[cemr5396]

IMO of the colors provided on that sample image 6037 is the closest thing to a typical original BN green. Some still-extant BN units have faded and lightened to something more similar to 6038.

Other than that I frankly think all the other options listed are completely 'out to lunch', as they say.

[nebrzephyr]

If I look at the sample image on 2 different monitors I see 2 different "greens". That's why trying to find the "right" color online is highly subjective to the monitor you view it on.

Bob

[edwardsutorik]

Jan 6, 2024 8:26:34 GMT -8 nebrzephyr said:

That's why trying to find the "right" color online is highly subjective to the monitor you view it on.

True, unless you have a calibrated monitor like this one.


Ed

[Baikal]

Jan 6, 2024 10:36:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Jan 6, 2024 8:26:34 GMT -8 nebrzephyr said:

That's why trying to find the "right" color online is highly subjective to the monitor you view it on.

True, unless you have a calibrated monitor like this one.

Ed

Still, no matter how well calibrated, teh brain interprets color differently if it's photons produced from a monitor vs. those partially absorbed/bouncing off an object.  Like my dog can tell that an image on TV is not the same as something outside a window.

But we do what we can with the tools we have.

[edwardsutorik]

Thus one's brain may well interpret an exact color match as being a non-match, because it's on a monitor.

"It ain't easy being green."



Ed

[lvrr325]

As I noted in another post I saw three different NYS&W engines running light and all three were a different shade of yellow.

Even a big road like BN the green is going to vary based on who painted it and when it got painted. A BN shop paint will likely vary a bit from a factory EMD or GE paint and an early repaint will likely show some fade compared to a recent paint. Even the same exact paint over a different base color can make the end result different. The D&H gave us examples of this; they painted ex-RDG and ex-LV engines blue with no primer at all (one wonders if they even bothered to wash the engine first). One of the GP38-2s the paint then slowly faded and wore off, turning nearly purple before pretty well all wearing away back to the factory EMD red LV paint.


So the bottom line when paint matching is to use what looks best to your own eye, and if you're going to run it with factory painted models keep it somewhere in the vicinity of those shades.

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

. Poor dog…

[edwardsutorik]

That there's a horse, pardner.

Or are you trying to change the subject?



Ed

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Jan 27, 2024 16:52:06 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

That there's a horse, pardner.

Or are you trying to change the subject?



Ed

My monitor isn't calibrated....I see a dog....