[PRCo] Re: Cleveland PCC colors

[Fred Schneider]

Does anyone have paint chart numbers from a specific paint company?


On Dec 7, 2010, at 12:38 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Both Harvard Shops and all the old CTS buses have long vanished. Harvard
> Shops still exists, even to the point of track in the buildings and imbedded
> in pavement between the buildings and even a few span wires/hangars still
> strung. However, that facility is now the Cleveland City Water Department.
> Cleveland Water serves all of Cuyahoga County and has filled the old Harvard
> Shops buildings plus a new, very large building to the west of the main
> buildings. I'm sure everything was cleaned out over the years.
> The CTS colors (until 1960) were light tan, light orange, with vermillion
> red stripes.
> 
> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 11:40, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> 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
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
> 
>