OT: Brown is a trademarked colour?

I wonder who or what is the arbiter of historic colour. I visited the Watercress Railway, Hampshire and got talking to someone technical , as to the choice of colour scheme for the stations. Apparently they chose Southern Railway green, but it seemed far too green to me. Near me a couple of 1970s sold off signalman's houses and one still has original soffits with original SR paint , never overpainted, and out of direct sunlight. Also at ex-Hythe raileay station, now used as a heritage centre, an internal cupboard painted SR green. But those samples of SR green are green with substantial blue and perhaps grey component, much more dingy than at Alresford and Medstead stations .

Likely faded quite a bit since they were painted under Railway Ownership but for a start the Green used by the Southern differed over the years from an Olive green up to the mid thirties then a shade of Malachite up WW2 and a lighter version which was still called Malachite after WW2 which may or may not have continued into Southern Region depending on who you believe. It is hard to know what the true definition is. Sometimes stock was just revarnished rather than repainted which ended up with a darker hue than if it is newly painted. Buildings did not use the same greens as the stock, the shade used for them was a middle chrome green so it boils down to subjective opinions as to what is right as it is 76 years since the Southern Railway existed few people are around to know. GH

Southern region carried on though using the same colours.

And if the arbiter of colour was unknowingly colour blind. I used to know a specialist plasterer (respected enough to be called in for replastering after the Windsor Castle fire) He said he sometimes ended up with awkward arguments with clients concerning the finished colour was not that which was agreed beforehand. I came across one of those , some sort of Japanese name colour blindness, hidden or not, coloured dot number charts in a small book. So he could check what his colour blindness status was but more importently establish the status of any client before starting works with this book and architects colour swatches.

I think you’re referring to Ishihara charts.

Yeah, probably wise although the Ishihara charts only identify the grosser colour discrimination problems.

Tim