Anyways the folks in the industry do a pretty good job to make sure they match colors as accurately as possible.
Don't get so bent out of shape with precise accuracy, because it doesn't exist. I think the industry does a pretty good job overall today. I hope we never see the low quality days of the '70's or '80's again
Hard to believe this topic is still rattling around. 
Actually, Lionel has always done a very good job with their colors, and they actually did a commendable job with them in the "old days," especially considering that paint processes were technically not near what they are today.
Chinese production has made things more challenging, though. As Lionel has stated, they're often not sure how things are going to look until they actually receive the items in the U.S. Frequently things can't be changed/corrected during the manufacturing process.
While it's true that absolute accuracy is elusive, and often "close enough" is "good enough," that doesn't mean when we pay the big dollars we do for items that we shouldn't encourage the manufacturers to make things accurately.
The extent of accuracy that's desired varies from person to person, of course; there are lots of complaints from Forumites about such things as the placement of a horn being incorrect. Those things don't bother me so much, but correct color is important, at least to me, and I think Lionel ought to pay attention to it, and we shouldn't ignore it.
There have been some significant color issues in the recent past; just one example was the Shasta Daylight so many folks complained about. Here, since from the catalog picture it's obvious (in the case of the Rio Grande engine) Lionel knows the correct color, it would be great if they could improve their production process so the finished product comes out the same way, and we should encourage that. I don't think when many hundreds of dollars are spent on these items, we should just shrug our shoulders about these things and look the other way. Feedback is important to all companies.
Off the soapbox.
