Most definitely the paints used by Athearn and Accurail will "blush" (or bloom as you
call it) with alcohol. It affects Athearn paints more strongly than Accurail. This can
be very useful when weathering with alcohol washes, especially gondola and hopper car
interiors. Walthers (not Proto) paint is much less vulnerable to this effect, or at
least it used to be.

And yeah lettering and paint are often different formulas - many times I've stripped a
car and only the paint is gone and the lettering remains in part or in full.

Tim O'Connor