[PRCo] Re: Cleveland PCC colors

[Fred Schneider]

My own recollection was tan and cream.

The problem with color films was:

(1) They were formulated principally to give skin tones that people loved, not necessarily correct colors.   This varied with different parts of the world.   The same manufacturer would alter his film or processing formulation to tastes in different countries.   Therefore, if you took a U. S. roll of film and had it processed in Europe, the results might be different.

(2)  Some of those were screened and printed and then rescanned from the book page.   I recognized the scan from the CERA Northeastern Ohio book.   There is absolutely no way that you can faithfully reproduce all colors in print because the ink / paper match will not work.   If you don't believe me, talk to a few printers about how artists drive them crazy when they have paintings reproduced.   

(3)  There was only one color film that I know that had an almost perfect match in all colors.   If you photographed a color wheel and then looked at the slided, Kodachrome 25 provided almost perfect results.   The public, however, didn't want perfect color.   They wanted (a) a high speed film and (b) colors to look like they wanted them to look.  That means read again item (1). 

(4)  The lens coloration was not always perfectly clear.   Different lens manufacturers produced optics of different color temperatures.   I had some lenses for my old Edixa reflex that were much more blue than other manufacturers' lenses.   

(5)  The viewing light was not always the color temperature, therefore one scan can be warmer or colder than another.   

(6)  The Kelvin temperature of sunlight varies considerably from overcast to bright sun.   I would imagine that there is also a considerable change to orange when filtered through sintering mill dust in the atmosphere in Cleveland back in the 1940s.     

So I guess, Herb, what you need to find is a couple of empty paint cans in some dusty recess of Harvard shops or an abandoned bus from which you can scrape paint chips.   


On Dec 7, 2010, at 12:37 AM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Now that the photos have become visible I see we have three different shades
> of each color. Like I said, there were just too many Kodak Brownie Cameras
> in that era. Too bad we can't find out what happened to the standard guage
> models Tom O'Toole had. They (according to him} were painted with paint from
> the CTS Harvard Shops.
> Like I said, I'll keep looking. I'm sure each photo is going to give a
> different shade of color, however.
> 
> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 00:31, Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net> wrote:
> 
>> The first photo is a photo I had on my hard drive which is, of course, the
>> Pullman model. The one labeled scan0001 is another Pullman and scan0002 is
>> the St Louis Car Co model. The differences are subtle between the two
>> models. Note the font and placement of the fleet numbers on each car and
>> note the doors on the Pullman car as opposed to the doors on the St Louis
>> Car model. Unfortunately, the photographic technology of the era in which
>> these cars were photographed was not the best. I will look up other color
>> photos tomorrow. I have hundreds of black and white pics but not that many
>> color ones. If I can get in touch with Blaine Hays, I'm sure he has many
>> color photos of the St Louis model PCC.
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 23:06, richard allman <allmanr at verizon.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> I want this to get to Herb Brannon-I am helping out George Huckaby of
>>> Customtraxx and he in turn is working w/ Bowser Manufacturing to build an HO
>>> model of the Cleveland PCC's-the ex-Louisville St Louis series, which per
>>> Bill Vigrass were the best cars CTS ever had. I don't mean to stir that
>>> dispute, but what we need are the exact colors of the cars in that very busy
>>> two tone tan-or was it two tone yellow-or was it two tone orange?! Bob
>>> Dietrich and I have been matching paint stirrers w/ model paint to the photo
>>> in the CERA book Remember When on page 53 and to color prints of the St.
>>> Petersburg model of the Pullman cars  w/  that presumably had the same paint
>>> colors but coming close is a challenge. And then assuming that the colors
>>> St. Petersburg Collection got-presumably they are correct, but... Then
>>> matching colors to photographs is tough, since photo reproduction is not
>>> consistent, so you see the dilemma. What we want to give George is a good
>>> faith likeness of the colors,!
>>> preferably close to what the real colors were that would satisfy the
>>> purists among the modelers and not be outrageously off the mark, and
>>> preferably be close to an available model paint -either solvent based or
>>> acrylic. The cream from the roof we got, but the others-such a to-do! Model
>>> manufacturing per George is not what it was-now the manufacturer makes a
>>> computer-generated 3-D rendering, applies the colors, sends the image to
>>> China, and presto-chango, a few months later a painted shell prototype
>>> arrives. Thanks Herb and apologies to all for a somewhat off-message
>>> message. I simply dould not find Herb's email in my address book, but Bob D.
>>> suggested you and it seems a good idea!
>>> RICH
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Herb Brannon
>> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
> 
>