On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Andy Carlson wrote:

To this day I am pleased with the mix, and it has solidified my belief that even large corporations may seek the economy and convenience of stock, fleet colors.

Andy,

I believe this is already proven fact. A number of years ago a custom painter, Sam McCall, who went by the screen name HOSam, compiled a list of paint codes from EMD styling diagrams. Sam is long gone, but his list is still on the web: Paint Codes Interestingly, he sorted the list three ways: by railroad, by color, and by manufacturers product number. This last makes it easy to see which roads used exactly the same paint; The Santa Fe and Rock Island used the exact same red, while the Rock Island and Erie Lackawanna used the exact same maroon. there are a bunch others.

The site also has some useful discussion on the history of the automotive finishes favored by EMD.

Dennis Storzek