Question re: Athearn PRR 7203 color - "Brunswick Green"

Tue Aug 13 11:23:26 EDT 2019

The city is ' New Brunswick'.  Rutgers school colors are red and black.
The color ' Brunswick Green' was applied to the P-5's; which entered service before the GG-1's were even imagined.  (and before I was born ).
Jerome Crosson.  NWHS in St. Peters MO.  Volunteer at National Museumof Transportation in Kirkwood MO.  May see you at the NMRA NationalConvention in 2020.

-----Original Message-----
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Mon, Aug 12, 2019 2:24 pm
Subject: Re: Question re: Athearn PRR 7203 color - "Brunswick Green"

The official designation for the paint color on the upper part of steam locomotives, and tenders, as well as all the GG1s except the five painted Tuscan for Congressional and Senator service, and all the freight diesels is: DGLE - Dark Green Locomotive Enamel.  
It was formulated (or mixed) EXACTLY as "The Master of the Turnip Patch" described. 
One reason often cited (without official documentation to back it up) is that the green reflected light differently than "glossblack" and so minor dings and dents were not as evident.  This was from the days when all locomotives were kept clean and the PRR was mindful of the public image. Although the above is plausible, it may have absolutely no basis in fact. 
>From sweltering northernmost VA
Jim StapletonRivet Counter in training
On Aug 12, 2019, at 14:18, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

Everybody has opinions.  So you can take the following for what you want.  I am at the stage of life where I no longer suffer under the delusion that any of my opinions are "the Truth."
1.  The railroad's Motive Power Department records call the color you are asking about "Locomotive Shade - Dark, " or alternatively "Dark Locomotive Shade."   I have seen it on the MP plans and records. 
2.  "Brunswick Green" is a populist term.  I have always wondered who coined the term, and when.  My guess is that the term came around when the first GG1s showed up wearing that color, in the late 1930s.  There seems to be some indication that "Locomotive Shade - Dark" may have also used to paint some of the passenger steam engines in the 1920-1930s on TuscanRed-dot-com.  There are people who spend a great deal of time researching information like this, but I am not one of them.
3.  Brunswick is a station on the PRR's New York Division, about 15 miles east of Princeton and about 35 miles west of New York City.  The town has no association with the color green, so far as I know.  Brunswick is the home of one of the best universities in this country:  Rutgers.  I would love to be a graduate electrical or mechanical engineer from Rutgers - which I ain't.
4.  The word "Brunswick" is an anglicization of the original name of the place, Braunsweig, which name was brought over from the Old Country by the early settlers.  Braunschweig was a Medieval Dutchy (as I recall) in Lower Saxony.   "Braun-" is obviously the German word for brown.  And I have forgotten the etymology of the combining-form  -schweig, but it is often the final element of a word denoting a place or location.
5.  I asked some of the old PRR paint shop people how they got their "Brunswick Green" paint.  They smiled and said they started with a barrel of black enamel paint and "threw in a handful of yellow chromate pigment... maybe two hands full,"  and stirred it up.  A very scientific mixture, you know.
Dat be all I know.  Which ain't much...
     -- abram burnett,derailed old brakezman
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