I've been looking at some photos taken of Conrail locomotives taken in the mid eighties and noticed quite a few engines seemed to be painted in a darker blue that bordered on a almost purple hue. Did Conrail change paint suppliers over the years?
Are they all different heritages, or do they go back to one particular road?
I shot some pictures of one of the ex-RDG GP40s... 3276 maybe... around 1995 and the blue on it was noticably darker. It appeared in Railpace about the same time, I'd have to dig it up to remember the number for sure.
But you'll note that the D&H GP38s in blue dip looked kind of purple when the blue faded and wore away and the LV red started to show through - it may be as simple as the CR blue going over say red primer giving it that odd cast.