A while ago on an impulse I bought a P2K Rock Island SW8 #821 in blue, because it was pretty and on discount! It faithfully matches the shade of blue in a photo I have of #821 on page 9 of Rock Island Color Pictorial Vol 3 by Louis A Marre.
It has been rather lonely as my only blue era Rock Island loco, so when a web search revealed that Spring Creek Model Trains still had a full complement of Athearn Genesis blue GP38-2s I sent for a pair, #4303 Iowa and #4329 City of Blue Island, which arrived today. I was surprised to find that whilst the box art is spot on for the P2K shade, both locos are a noticeably deeper shade of blue than #821. Looking at the numerous photos of blue GP38-2s in the aforementioned volume and in Rock Island in Color vol 2 by Bill Marvel I see that the shade of blue seems to vary with the light, but none seem quite as dark as the Genesis shade. The actual models also seem a greener blue than the pur blue of their photos on the Athearn website.
Does anyone have views? Did Athearn change the paint shade in mid-run? The P2K shade seems to match the majority of the photos I have. But the caption on a photo of SW8 #838 in the Marre book says it was painted blue by a contractor at El Dorado, Arkansas, so perhaps there were several shades?
Best Regards,
Bill