This is NOT to get a colour discussion going. But have a look at this
photo.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799?size=_original <http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799?size=_original>

Every car in this photo (from a Kodachrome slide, and Kodachrome being
well-known for its colour stability over time) looks like it belongs to
the PRR, "The Standard Railroad of the World".

Yet there is quite a variance in car colour, and the PRR would
certianly have painted them all with "PRR STANDARD" paint.

This shows why I don't get too hung up on paint matching--the prototype
didn't.

Steve Lucas.

Further to your point, Steve, layouts which have all the cars painted the "right color" are
basically not credible, and lack of weathering, even for "new this year" cars isn't realistic. A
few years ago (um, well. . .~10) I drove past a brand new box car with a "NEW date the same month, a
Pacific NW road's car, so new the paint still smelled of its vehicle. It was spotted at a lumber
yard, and thought "I need to get a picture of that!" So I went back at lunch, and noticed that in
what could not have been more than one trip across the US, it was dusty, spattered with mud, and
since morning, the locals at the yard had used a forklift to open the door, resulting in a six-foot
"scratch" about a quarter-inch deep, which was already showing rust.

SGL