PRR Steam Red Paint

[SD452XR]

What should I use for the Dark Red the PRR used on the top of their tenders?

[chicken45]

We've heard "it depends" on the shop that painted it. Conventional knowledge leads to a 50/50 mix of FCC and black. I just used straight up FCC and will weather it. 
You probably can't go wrong as there's so much variation.

[dougnelson]

like Josh said...kind of.

The 1929 PRR Booklet No. 199-C, "Instructions to be followed in Painting the Different Parts of New and Repaired Locomotives and Tenders" calls for tenders "Top of Cistern, including rear of Coal Space" to be "freight car color."  No black added, that was for the cab roof.  It should be noted that individual shops were known to use their own variations and interpretations, perhaps whatever paint they had on the shelf.  Your mileage may vary.

The proximity to the locomotive exhaust, pieces of coal, and spilled water all added to the variety of possible variations on top of whatever paint was underneath.

[sirenwerks]

We've heard "it depends" on the shop that painted it. Conventional knowledge leads to a 50/50 mix of FCC and black. I just used straight up FCC and will weather it. 
You probably can't go wrong as there's so much variation.

The FCC is making paint?  (Can't help it, I work in the nederworld of acronym/abbreviation abuse)

[peteski]

The FCC is making paint?  (Can't help it, I work in the nederworld of acronym/abbreviation abuse)

Tell me about it!  Working for a computer manufacturer where acronyms run rampant I proudly wear my AAAAA shirt and get lots of comments about it (in and out of work). 



http://www.computergear.com/aaaaatshirt.html

[chicken45]

You guys are the worst haha. 

[Lemosteam]

Sirenwerks, at my wor we once had the Ford Acronym Review Team....

[peteski]

Sirenwerks, at my wor we once had the Ford Acronym Review Team....

That is one stinkin' acronym! 

[nkalanaga]

Same acronym, but possibly a worse use:

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/the-centovalli-railway-scenic-travels-in-ticino-475051.html
"Locarno has several fine old churches and a noteworthy art gallery, but the countryside all around is too beautiful to ignore, characterised by steep, wooded valleys, quiet, stone-built hamlets and sensational views. Several routes head out from the town; the most celebrated is the narrow-gauge Centovalli railway, run by FART, which heads due west from Locarno into the high Centovalli - so named for its web of a hundred (or more) side-valleys - and on across the Italian border to Domodossola."

"One of the most unfortunately named companies in the whole history of travel - to speakers of the English language anyway - must be the firm running the local buses and trains for the city of Locarno, in Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. "Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi", or Ticinese Regional Buses and Railways, sounds a decent, reliable sort of enterprise - and indeed it is. However, the ill-advised firm chooses to make an acronym from its name, and so Locarno is blessed with FART buses and FART trains and all kinds of slick publicity for excursions by FART.

Worse still, they often don't bother with capital letters, so as a bus passes, you get a flash of the single word "Fart" lettered neatly above - yes, it's true - the exhaust pipe.

The locals, of course, are oblivious, since the word means nothing in Italian. I explained the joke once, to some Swiss German friends in Lucerne; they fell about laughing, partly in disbelief, after which I pointed out that Lucerne's summer jazz festival rejoices in the equally unbelievable name "Blue Balls". Instead of more chortles, I got only blank looks. Cross-cultural humour is a slow way to pass an evening."