Best paint match for MTH blue on B&O locomotives and passenger cars?

For a perfect match, you’d have to take an overseas trip and hope by god you can find the drum the factory used to paint your stuff ……otherwise, you’re gonna have to get some Scalecoat II and some varying shading colors and come up with a concoction that best satisfies you,……but you can keep this in mind, cause I always get requests for “dead on matched paint”  or “ the shade is off” …..when the real trains were shopped and rebuilt, and sometimes repainted, they weren’t always ( If hardly ever ) dead perfect matched colors.….so a little variation in colors, even in the same consist is quite ok!….even the infamous Pullman car company had varying shades of colors on the same run of cars,…they’d switch paint vendors like we change our shorts!….Minuteman sells railroad colors, as does another outfit, but the name scapes my brain….

Pat

You might consider Tru Color paints.  They tend to be fairly accurate, but I can't promise they will match MTH's color.

@GG1 4877 posted:

You might consider Tru Color paints.  They tend to be fairly accurate, but I can't promise they will match MTH's color.

That’s the other brand I was thinking of,….and yes, we can almost guarantee a no perfect match in color, ….if he wants dead on match, prepare to play chemist .😁

Pat

Ken,

I have just this month used Tru-Color Bando TCP-334 on the B&O cow and calf in the attached photograph. They started out as a New Haven  MTH SW-7 cow /calf set. I stripped them and air brushed the Tru-Color paint, then used a semi-gloss rattle can on the finish.

The repainted cow/calf set has a factory painted MTH B&O blue H10-44 (9702)  coupled behind it. In the background is a Lionel factory painted B&O GP30 and just behind the lead unit (cow) is another factory painted MTH blue B&O SD35. I attempted to line them up for the best comparison. The colors are not perfect matches, but as pointed out by harmonyards above, this was common in the prototype world also.  To me, the match is acceptable, even when used by an amatuer like me with tired old eyes and arthritic hands.   

As for the gray, I haven't yet had an opportunity to tackle a project needing the gray so I can not add any insight on that subject.

Regardless, paint them how you like them and have fun doing it.

Hope this helps,

C.J.

I really appreciate the effort you went to to pose that photo for me. The match with the the H10-44 seems quite close. I'm still doing some research, but this color appears to be the top candidate for now.

Here is a Lionel GP that was repainted several years ago with Krylon Regal Blue.  After dull coating, I was happy with the color.

Harold