In planning my cajon layout, ive decided to model the random foreign pop ups of cab forwards on the West Coast Ltd and really would like to model a SP/RI Golden state with matching SP E7s. What color would you guys suggest for the top half the consist and locos? Scarlet red? Daylight red? Any help is greatly appreciated! Adam
Adam Wow! Thats the very question that I have been struggling with. I have several of the sleepers that Intermountain has painted for the Golden State and the color on them looks really good compaired to photographs I have seen (vermillion?). A lot of sources say that it is Daylight Red, but I have tried several Daylight Reds and they don't seem to match. Same thing with SP Scarlet. I sent an e-mail to an Intermountain rep asking what color they painted their cars, but havn't received a reply. I'll keep trying, but would appreciate any information that others can supply. Gerry
I was actually thinking about using ATSF red as what comes out of the bottle, looks more like the faded red vs the fresh paint red the warbonnets had. Adam
Wow, there's a question that takes me back 65 years. Between 1945 and 1947 I took four trips on the Golden State. I have no clue what color was used for the cars, but I do remember that my first trip in November 1945 between Chicago's La Salle Street and Tucumcari, NM we had a Rock Island Rocket E unit. Then we had an SP GS-4 War Baby through to Tucson, AZ where my Mother and I left the train. At El Paso the GS was uncoupled and run forward to a water crane...great experience for a 10-year old. Good luck on your color search....:tb-cool:
Like I said, I really like the appearence of the Intermountain Golden State cars. It really seems to be a good match for the color photos of the original Golden State back in the day. However, when I paint other cars with Daylight Red, it is not the same color (I'm a bit red/green color blind, so I get my wife to help me with the color). I read that they quit using the red paint on the Golden State cause it faded badly in the desert sun, so perhaps the color I'm searching for is Daylight red after it faded for some time. Still, I don't want to repaint the Intermountain sleepers, so i will keep searching for a paint that is closer to them. Gerry
just remember, the E7's were painted Daylight BEFORE the streamlined train they were ment for was delivered.
If a photo or two would help... http://coastdaylight.com/gs2.jpg http://rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=271852
Jerry Thanks for posting those pictures. I brought one of my Intermountain Golden State sleepers over to the computer to compare. The cars in the photos seem to have a bit more orange in the red than does the Intermountain sleeper. I called my non-color blind wife over and she says the cars in the pictures have more of a "tomato" color than does the Intermountain sleeper. I spent a lot of time trying to find a color that matchs the Intermountain sleepers and I found that the various Daylight Reds did have more orange in them than the sleeper's paint - which seems to confirm that the prototype cars were painted in Daylight Red or something similar. Still, I want my train to have a more or less consistant color and I don't want to repaint the Intermountain cars. I found some old Riverossi cars (combine, coachs and observation which are matchs for the Golden State prototype cars except they need paint and decals. Intermountain has announced a Golden State diner in the near future, so I will continue to try to mix a red that matchs the Intermountain red painted cars (its more of a true red) in hopes of modeling a complete train in the near future. I know that the RI and SP quit painting the cars red cause they tended to fade, so I suppose there is some latitude in matching the original train. I know that I have seen some prototype photos that seem to be a good match to the Intermountain cars but color photos that old are pretty unreliable. Gerry
