@CNJ #1601 posted:Magicland, I own several books on CNJ motive power.
Regarding your question about the color of the lettering, here's a quote from one of the books...
"The body was done in an orange and blue scheme separated by a red stripe. Initially, the roof was painted orange, but quickly grew black with usage. The roof was later painted blue and all following orders came this way. Lettering was the same orange or blue, depending on the background color, and outlined with a thin, red border. Trucks and undercarriage were black."
Further..."Other cab units arrived in a simplified variation of this scheme. Gone were the red stripe and border, and gold leaf replaced the orange lettering. As the CNJ had found out earlier with the switchers, the gold-leaf tended to tarnish and blend in with the surrounding dark background, making the identification almost invisible from any distance. An engineering directive changed the orange in the gold-leaf lettering color to imitation gold."
Another quote taken from a late '40's photo caption for unit #2004 states...
"Original metallic gold lettering is barely readable and demonstrates why the CNJ quickly replaced it with imitation gold paint".
So depending upon what road # you're planning to model, the "Jersey Central lines" lettering could be orange, gold-leaf...or imitation gold!
Maybe you're already aware of this, but here are some other interesting notes on the original blue & orange paint scheme...
Units 2000-2002 were delivered with orange roofs and had a red pinstripe separating the blue and orange on the car body...with orange lettering. Even the blue nose heralds--as well as the name (Jersey Central Lines) and road # at the top, center of the car body--also carried a very narrow 1/4" red pinstripe around them...which was barely visible even in the sharpest of color photographs.
Units 2003-2005 were delivered with the "simplified" paint scheme mentioned above...with blue roofs and no separating red pinstripes.
As for the steps...the best I can tell from the color builder's photos of class unit # 2000, they were painted black to match the trucks and under-carriage details. The reason I say "best I can tell" is because the original blue paint was so dark it almost looks black in the color photos!
The builder's plate also appears to be dark blue in the color photos.
Interestingly, I can't see any "Water Fill" stenciling in the builder's photos.
Hope this helps a bit!
Some interesting stuff there, didn't know about the red striping around the herald, letters and road numbers. I'm modeling 2004, so that makes things a bit easier. Also a bit more difficult, as most of the color photos seem to be of the earlier 3. Just about every Baldwin builder's plate I've seen that still has paint on it seems to have the lettering highlighted in some contrasting color, wonder if they used orange, gold, or something else?
If you zoom in on this photo, you can see the 2 "Water Fill" marks, one just to the right of the cab door, the other about the center of the engine. https://i1.wp.com/digitalraila...2017/10/CNJ-2004.jpg
