# D&RGW Paint colors



## Dansgscale (Jan 9, 2010)

I'm not a newbie by any means as I have been railroad modeling for well over 30 years, but I have not been active for the last 10 years or so and recently got back into it in G scale. My question is what colors of paint and what brands does everyone use for replicate the D&RGW colors for the Passenger cars and Box cars. The Passener cars colors I want to do are those of the DSNG Yellow cars with Silver or grey roofs.

All my modeling in the past has been done in wood for constructing rolling stock so I used PolyS paint and used Floquil paint for metal and plastc parts. Now that I am building in G scale it is being done mostly in Plastic or buying Bachmman cars and wanting to repaint them. I have not had any luck finding any D&RGW colors in the Floquil paints, just in the PolyS paints, but they don't work very well on plastic.

So, I'm open to suggestions to what brand and colors to use to replicate the colors for both the passenger cars and freight cars that will work on plastic. I would like these paints to be used in an Airbrush, but open to a rattle can if thats what it takes.

Dan S.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Since Aristo Craft and USAT don't use the same yellow color on their D&RGW diesels, you need to decide whick diesel you're going to use to pull the passenger cars. That is unless you plan to paint the diesel too.


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

I use _POLLY Scale_ and go with D&RGW YELLOW. It is an exact match for the LGB rolling stock using the "Aspen Gold" (yellow and silver w/black stripe) paint scheme. It's the best I've been able to find! As long as you first use a primer you shouldn't have trouble with the paint adhering to plastic. Using an airbrush should give a thin enough coat not to hide any detailing.


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

I haven't painted anything yellow. Actually I've painted a lot of yellow cars green









But for the boxcar (general freight) color I like to use Scalecoat II Boxcar red.

So far I've painted three Hartland gondolas, three Hartland flats, 2 LGB gondolas, 2 USA flats, 2 USA cabeese, and 1 MDC caboose all in this color. If you'd like, I can post a few photos of them so you can see if you like how it looks.

For the silver roofs and anything else that needs to be silver, I really like Scalecoat II Aluminum. 

Note Scalecoat II is for plastics, Scalecoat I is not and might eat some thin plastics. Scalecoat paint is similar to Floquil (not water based). The airbrush ratio of thinner to paint I use is 50-50 with Scalecoat. The paint is formulated so you do not need a primer. So far it has held up very well for me.


One other thing to keep in mind. Scalecoat dries very glossy for decaling. You'll need a dull coat overspray of some kind. And be sure the Scalecoat is fully dry before overspraying. I like to wait at least 2 days.


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## Dansgscale (Jan 9, 2010)

Thanks for the information guys, I'll see if I can locate Scalecoat II at some of the local Hobby shops and if I can't find it locally, I'll order it online. I like that it is simular to Floquil as I have always liked using it in the past. Matt I would like to see the Boxcar red you spoke about to see how close it is to the Color Bachmann uses on thier Boxcars. I'm in the process of Building a number of them and would like the color to be the same on all of them, or as close as possible. 

Steve: I'll give the PolyS D&RGW Yellow at try on the Passenger cars. What primer do you suggest? 

Randy; I appericate your input, but I'm an old timer and Steam is my thing, Diesel's are my brothers thing. I tend to model Colorado Narrow gauge whereas my brother models 1940's and 50's Diesel's and streamline cars and metal boxcars. 

It's been a bit of a challenge to design a garden railway that looks appropriate to run my 1890's Steam and my brothers 1940's diesel's. I keep telling him though that the steam engines had a longer life span than the typical Diesel. Some Steam engines still running are well over 100 years old, can't say that about diesels, which seem to change every 10 years or so. Anyone know what the oldest Diesel still running today and how old it is? 

No disrespect Randy, but I just love the character of the Steam engines and the sound they make and the mornful wail of thier whistles off in the distance. I guess it has to do when I grew up and watching the belching beasts roll into my Grandfathers station back in arkansas. 

Thanks again; 
Dan Stuettgen


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Not too sure how well the paint matches with a Bachmann boxcar as I don't have any. I'm not a big fan of the open space under the catwalk ends.

Below are some photos showing the cars we painted with Scalecoat II Boxcar Red. Note Scalecoat has 3 flavors of Boxcar Red, but I chose the first one simply named Boxcar Red. Here is a link to a color chart that may be helpful:

Scalecoat Color Chart Page 1

Scalecoat Color Chart Page 2 


And here are some photos (all after being dull coated):

1st a USA flat that has been kitbashed











2nd an LGB gondola, and Hartland flats (all kitbashed)












3rd a USA Caboose that has been kitbashed













This is what the paint looks like before being dull coated:


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