Some Orange Images

Since purchasing GCT 113 from Stagecoach last year, I've been searching the Internet for images of this Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport stalwart in previous liveries and in so doing have come across plenty of photos of GCT buses of yesteryear. For me, and my desire to repaint GCT 113 into the 'Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport Orange 1990', I've been paying particular notice to photos showing the orange used by GCT from 1987 to the Stagecoach purchase in November 1993.

I had a few thoughts about the shade of orange used but was then put in contact with the man who supplied Mason's paints to GCT during this period, and let him take the strain - not with the desired initial outcome. Having then been the owner of a bus in the wrong shade of orange, I went back and did the due diligence that I had intended to do before being put in touch with the perfect contact.

My paint rep Howard did offer some insight into the shade of orange that I'd otherwise not have known had the bus not been painted into the wrong shade last December. Yet despite undertaking what I had always intended to do, albeit posthumously, I am still - after collecting GCT 113 on 1 May wearing the final shade of orange - always questioning whether or not I could have got the shade even closer to that used by GCT between 1987 and 1993.

Old Father Time has a tendency to cloud judgement and while GCT was renowned for keeping its vehicles in tip-top condition, the daily bus wash for each vehicle, and the requirement to paint buses every 5 years rather than every 2 years under Stagecoach ownership, has shown some quite remarkable differences in shades or orange in different online images.

So, I'm showing below a collage of five images of GCT buses painted in the Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport Orange 1990, a bespoke mix based on the orange used on the stylised fleetname vinyl. I've opted for the closest ready-made shade of orange - a Pantone - rather than pay extra for a bespoke mix as I felt the shade I ultimately used was as close as possible to the orange vinyl.

Hopefully, you'll see from the collage - that includes four images of GCT buses taken 'back in the day', fresh from the paint shop and one photo of GCT 113 also fresh from the paint shop on 1 May 2018 - that there genuinely is very little difference in the shade of the orange used.

GCT 113 is the top left image. The top right image shows how similar the paint was to the stylised fleetname vinyl, which I was loaned and had identical copies made.