On Nov 7, 2019, at 12:58 PM, Jim Mischke <jmischke@...> wrote:



I'd like to clarify or muddy the B&O gray on covered hoppers.

I have a B&O gray paint chip from the Mt. Clare drift card, and another intrepid B&O society member harvested a paint chip from a prototype N-43 PS-2 covered hopper from a spot where the sun don't shine.   They matched, but we were alarmed that this authentic B&O gray was so dark.   Unacceptable on a B&O model in a dim basement.

When the B&OHS sponsored a Kadee B&O PS-2 covered hopper project (600 cars, long sold out, no web images found today), I made a conscious decision to specify one grade of gray lighter.   Everybody loved it.  Even more arbitrary, Kadee only produces their gray covered hoppers in three shades: light, medium and dark, no matter what anybody's prototype gray paint chip says.   Spring Mills Valley produced their B&O N-34 wagontop covered hopper with its Kadee B&O PS-2 model predecessor in mind.   Both products are effective and popular.   Not the B&O gray.

I can hop and stomp around about accurate railroad colors with the best of them.  Yet there are times when an color offset is called for, in light of basement illumination, pun intended.  We seek a believable illusion, sometimes prototype colors fall short.   Black, white, and gray are particularly vulnerable to ambient light and scale effects.


Jim Mischke
a B&O freight car go-to guy