Just picked up 3 x SK's and 2 x SO's.

I can't help but notice that the SO's are a much darker red than the SK's and my three other Crimson & Cream coaches.

Looking around the web they all appear this way, so it begs the question, is this deliberate?

Good question. I have a heap of Poole blud & custards from the 90s that are all sorts of colours. Don't tell me they're up to old tricks...

I've never been really keen on the blood & custard carriages. Many of them still don't look quite right paint wise to me. I have a few including the older Dapol autocoach and I've never been really happy with it.

I'll get a pic up shortly.

Must admit I have a few that range from maroon/custard to scarlet/custard.
The only constant is the custard, and even that gets milkier at times

Not the best light but:

I can remember the real ones and memory plays tricks but were the real ones always the same shades ?
Probably too dirty to tell !
I guess that in N scale it shows up more.

Colour photos from the 50s certainly show a range of shades.

All reports I have read of the Crimson/Cream days said that the colours weathered horribly and rapidly, particularly the Cream - maybe Farish have the colour variations right, but with the wrong colour!

If they've accidentally created a true reflection of the real colour I can live with that. They look very maroon! 

I think it's about time this colour/shades thing was sorted out by manufacturers. If you have a rake of Farish and Dapol coaches it can look very strange. My Dapol Colletts look decidedly orange to me. Farish shades have varied over the years so a rake of this make can be quite different. We all tend to see colours differently and colour blindness in it's various levels is much more prevalent with men than women. Basically what I am trying to say is the variables in the colour/shade are just too great. Some people may even avoid a particular make for this reason, so manufactures could do themselves and us a big favour by agreeing of some standardisation of colour. With coaches in the farish range having a sizeable price increase I think this compounds matters. Just my own personal feelings of course.

They don't even look crimson to me. They look more like Maroon and cream. 

What have Farish been up to? 

They are closer to maroon than crimson. Going to swap them for some more SK's, they look odd. I can see a slight variation in some of my other ones, but not that much.

Quote from: trkilliman on May 24, 2014, 08:47:13 AM
I think it's about time this colour/shades thing was sorted out by manufacturers. If you have a rake of Farish and Dapol coaches it can look very strange. My Dapol Colletts look decidedly orange to me.

Spot on, trkilliman: I raised this very issue a couple of years ago here:-

http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=886.0

I'll reproduce the photo here, for reference:-



Cheers,
Neil

Paint shades would have varied depending on which carriage works painted the coaches, even the same works could use several slightly different shades of the same colour, mixing paint wasn't an exact science in those days! Also as has been said already, weathering would affect how a coach looked, as would the difference between a wooden bodied and steel bodied coach. Does it really matter as long as they run ok?
I have a mix of Farish and Dapol coaches in blood and custard, and the variations in shades doesn't bother me.

Chris