Does Tamiya or Rustoleum make a paint that is close to the color that they
use for their passenger car trucks.
Rivarossi passenger car trucks were grey, with a slightly metallic look to them. I always painted mine with black of some degree, then used a brush to pick-out the springs with a suitable colour, followed by a light weathering of the trucks and car, using an airbrush...
This one's from Model Die Casting, but better-shows the colour of the sideframes, which are not the original trucks...
The only thing from IHC that I have is this modified Mogul, with a cab from a Bachmann Consolidation, a few added details, and a shortened and much-modified tender...
Here's the tender during the modifications...
As I recall, the truck sideframes were originally black, and somewhat shiny, but like all of my locomotives, they got the brush-painted treatment on the simulated springs and the faces of the wheels, followed-up with some airbrushed weathering.You can, of course, paint the sideframes just about any colour you want...silver was a common choice on more modern passenger equipment, and some roads painted the truck sideframes to match their passenger equipment. For real cars and locomotives, the wheels were never painted, but they did rust and, before roller bearings, the wheel faces got quite covered with oil from the journal boxes. If your wheels are shiny, they need to be painted: rust-colours, front and back, plus axles, for cars with roller bearings, and for solid bearings, some shade of black on the faces, rust colours on the back and axles.
The only exception for shiny wheels (other than the treads on metal wheels) is the wheel rims where a car has gone through a hump yard, and the retarders, which press on the wheel rims, have removed the dirt and rust, temporarily making them shiny.
As you've probably guessed, the colours about which you're inquiring are not likely the ones you need, if you want the trucks to look realistic.
Wayne
The usual advice is to not paint trucks pure black because in our indoor lighting it makes the trucks seem to disappear and the cars seem to be just floating on nothing.
When I painted AAR type freight trucks that were unpainted metal (not something that is seen anymore but there used to be brands of trucks that were shiny bare metal) I would use a rattle can "almost black" paint meant for outdoor grills - black but with just a hint of lighter shade to it. Perhaps it was Ace hardware's own brand. Then I did highlighting of detail somewhat along the lines of Dr Wayne's tutorial.
Rustoleum makes a dark dark gray almost charcoal gray primer - it reminds me of the dark gray almost black that you see on some modern military airplanes and now increasingly on custom painted automobiles for a certain stealth bomber look. I'd explore those.
Dave Nelson
The gray that IHC or AHM or Rivarossi used is light enough to bring out some detail and what I do is an application of DullCote to tame that slight metallic look that Doctor Wayne refers to, then some highlighting.
There is a decent amount of detail in the IHC/AHM/Rivarossi passenger car trucks. I paint mine to bring that detail out.
-Kevin
Living the dream.