shades of B&M blue

I have a few questions about the shades of blue paint B&M used on their locomotives. I believe in the late 1970's GP38-2 206 and possibly a couple others were painted in the standard B&M paint scheme of that time but with a much darker than standard shade of blue. In photos I've seen it appears almost as dark as MoPac blue. Is that correct? Apparently the dark blue did not catch on and they returned to the standard lighter B&M blue.

A few years later in the early 1980's, when B&M started spelling out "Boston & Maine" on the hood sides, did they start using a slightly darker shade of blue than previously? Photos I've seen seem to indicated that they did, but photos can be so deceiving. Any insight into different shades of B&M blue and when they were used will be most appreciated!

The early 1980s blue was DuPont Imron paint, but I don't know where that fits on those color charts with hundreds of choices that you see at Home Depot!

Here is a photo of 202 that illustrates the darker late-1970's shade of blue I was referring to. Notice how 202 appears darker than others in the consist.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=947519" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As delivered, the GP-38s used a blue that was about the same as the B&M was applying to units receiving the "blue dip" scheme. But it may have weathered a bit faster, because by the time the GP-40-2s arrived, in a blue that was somewhat darker, the contrast was really evident. In this case, it looks like 202 got repainted, possibly in the same blue used for the 1977 GP-40-2s. Observe also the difference between 1718 & 1745.

One other confounding variable is the film stock used in the photography. Kodak had both transparency and negative materials that could produce clean whites, but might shift color rendition. Add decades of storage, especially with transparencies, and rendition problems increase. If I remember correctly, when North Conway completed a Minuteman paint job with Imron way back last century, there were problems with both the paint and some films that shifted the maroon to almost an eggplant if the light was at the right/wrong angle.

Very good point jaymac, and even in the digital era it continues to be a problem because most people have their cameras set for "auto white balance," which is a convenient feature but it's not 100% reliable... and each camera manufacturer uses a slightly different white balance algorithm. You could line up five photographers on the same day in front of the same locomotive, and if they're each shooting with a different brand of camera (let's say Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony, and Olympus), all five photos are going to have slightly different color rendition.

I suspect that the latest 1980's "Boston and Maine" spelled-out repaints used the more-or-less standard B&M blue. But between using Dupont Imron paint and older blue paint starting to fade, they may have appeared slightly darker than their predecessors. Were they really? Who knows...

Regarding the dark blue repaints from the late 1970's, I am convinced there were in fact a small handfull of locomotives so painted. Were they much darker or just slightly darker than standard B&M blue? I guess that depends on your perspective and/or the film you were using. But there were some units painted darker blue in about 1978-1979. I earlier stated that 206 was one of those repaints, however I now believe that to be incorrect. Here is the list I have come up with so far:
202
1729
1754 (maybe)

And a few photo links:
http://gilford.rrpicturearchives.net/sh ... id=2832535" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=947519" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2838745" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If Dave Hutchinson or anyone else has any opinion on the shades of blue, please chime in!

The DuPont paint may not have been used on every repaint. Who knows if they still had old paint in stock. They may have used up the old, but put on the new lettering scheme. There may have been times where another brand had to be purchased in a pinch. They could have matched the pigments, but the composition of the base threw it off.

guilfordrailfan wrote:I suspect that the latest 1980's "Boston and Maine" spelled-out repaints used the more-or-less standard B&M blue. But between using Dupont Imron paint and older blue paint starting to fade, they may have appeared slightly darker than their predecessors. Were they really? Who knows...

Regarding the dark blue repaints from the late 1970's, I am convinced there were in fact a small handfull of locomotives so painted. Were they much darker or just slightly darker than standard B&M blue? I guess that depends on your perspective and/or the film you were using. But there were some units painted darker blue in about 1978-1979. I earlier stated that 206 was one of those repaints, however I now believe that to be incorrect. Here is the list I have come up with so far:
202
1729
1754 (maybe)

And a few photo links:
http://gilford.rrpicturearchives.net/sh ... id=2832535" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=947519" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2838745" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If Dave Hutchinson or anyone else has any opinion on the shades of blue, please chime in!

Sorry for the delay in answering this one, must have missed it somehow. You all are not seeing things, cameras are not playing tricks on you, Kodak dyes did not change things either, in 1979 early 1980, the B&M received a different batch of blue paint, don't know how this happened or who is to blame, but what I do know, is that it didn't weather very well as you will see in the accompanying photo taken on November 23,1980.

Looking through my photo collection, I can come up with the following units that got the dark blue.

202 - 1724 - 1726 - 1729 - 1748 - 1754