# paint colors



## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Usually USAT paint colors look really close.
But








This SD 40-2 I bought awhile back was so "orange" that I tried to really age it and weather it out .
now that I have two Sd45s and GP40 I just can't stand it.
even their photo on their site looks better than this.

I should have taken a photo before the weathering. In person you would call it orange, ...


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## H-man (Jan 4, 2008)

This is why I haven't purchased any Aristo UP locomotives the yellow is just wrong. Too red/orange.


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

An interesting thing about Santa Fe yellow is that, especially on the earliest units that received the new scheme (late 70s), the yellow actually had an orange tint to it. It seems that only the newer locos were pure yellow like the 5362 in your photo. A lot has to do with weathering, and some may actually have to do with the film used to take photos.

But I definitely recall seeing in person that in the 80s (pre ditch light era) the paint seemed to be more orange, and in the 90s the yellow was not as orange. 

To confuse things even more, in the modern BNSF era this paint can fade to an almost cream color.


I guess the quickest way I can show this as comparison photos are these MSTS (Microsoft Train Sim) models based off of the actual units paint.


*The first is the orangish 1980s (pre ditchlight) era paint:*











*The second is the 1990s era (ditchlight) yellow paint:*











*And the third shows heavily faded modern era (BNSF) paint:*












Of course I'm not sure how orange the USA unit was originally. Looking at your photo it does look to be too much even under the weathering. So they probably over did the whole orange tint thing a bit. But a slight orange tint is very prototypical for an early to late 1980s Santa Fe loco.


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

I have it repainted now and once I dull coat it , it will probably look like your 1st photo. 
I'm happy with the color match but it was,,,,,"brushed" on. too lazy to mask it off. 
And yes on the UP Aristo E 8s, I repainted the 3 of them because they was too "orange" for me.


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## bottino (Feb 7, 2008)

Marty, this Yellow/Orange thing on Aristocraft locos is very interesting. I got into it once with someone on the Aristo Forum, about the Rio Grande Orange on the SD45. I was raised around RG all the time, and somehow thought it should be orange. Then someone posted a picture of a 1:1 RG engine, and the color was really seriously Yellow not orange. My own RG pictures also confirmed it. So I stood corrected,which means that Aristo really has it wrong with the Orange colors. I just bought a new Aristo Rio Grande RS3, and it clearly is orange too. I am not a talented painter like you, and I still believe that it should be Orange, so I'm leaving things alone.
Paul


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Paul 
theres no talent. I use the blue masking tape which lets you see through it, i cheat, then use a knife to cut away as needed.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Posted By NTCGRR on 04/17/2009 6:17 PM
Paul 
theres no talent. I use the blue masking tape which lets you see through it, i cheat, then use a knife to cut away as needed.

Rembrandt shears his secrets


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

well I brushed on a lighter yellow to show age and fade. 








I used a Q tip to wipe off the ooppss. now to finish weathering it 

Also i now have the color combination in qts so i canpaint as much as I want


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