Red Bird Red

[NW Modeling List]

If Social Security is said to be the third rail of politics (touch it and you're dead!), then surely Tuscan Red is the third rail of the N&W community!

Speaking on behalf of the Modeling Committee as a whole, with individual members having the freedom to jump in as they wish, this subject gets flogged every year or so with no satisfactory conclusion because no definitive data exists to resolve the debate. I believe there is one thing on which N&W modelers agree: there is currently no commercial paint that accurately matches "N&W Tuscan Red" when new at the factory. Of course, which Tuscan Red are we talking about? That on passenger cars, that on the J's and K's, that on the Red Birds, on the excursion cars, etc., etc. 

Many modelers have developed mixes of commercial paints which they believe are close enough to their eyes to represent they saw or see in photos. Those mixes have appeared here and in other publications. The best that anyone has been able to say is that the mix looks close to them. (The Scalecoat N&W Red more closely matches the excursion red than the traditional N&W Tuscan Red.)

My own observations were that the Red Birds were much redder than the cars they pulled...which were older, somewhat faded, and weathered. So were there different reds? Who knows for sure?

Bill McClure