What is this colour? Dark grey?

[ChrisXY]

So I have bought a pile. But unsure what this colour should be. I dont think it is faded as I have a bunch of pieces with that same colour.

bluish gray, light bluish gray, dark gray???, light gray

The top piece is only be found in dark gray

 

 

[Lyichir]

Yeah, that's old dark gray.

[ChrisXY]

Thanks!

[JesseNight]

3 hours ago, ChrisXY said:

The top piece is only be found in dark gray

That's correct, it's a sleeper for 1980s railroad tracks (the old 12V system).
The switch from old grays to bluish grays was made in the early 2000s if I'm not mistaking.

[ChrisXY]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

That's correct, it's a sleeper for 1980s railroad tracks (the old 12V system).
The switch from old grays to bluish grays was made in the early 2000s if I'm not mistaking.

What´s funny though, I have this part only once! I mean how can this be as this part shows up at least multiple times in every set... :D

[Toastie]

47 minutes ago, ChrisXY said:

What´s funny though, I have this part only once! I mean how can this be

Well, you may want to get the book "THE LEGO TRAINS BOOK" from Holger Matthes. Go to part 1 and the grey/gray era section. And yes, this is before bley was invented by TLG ;)

The book is available in German. I did a review some 6 years ago here on EB:

Best,
Thorsten

[JesseNight]

21 hours ago, ChrisXY said:

What´s funny though, I have this part only once! I mean how can this be as this part shows up at least multiple times in every set... :D

Good question! But since it appeared only in Trains, it shouldn't be too hard to track? Unless it was left behind by accident by someone else in your collection?
What's the other dark gray part lying next to it? Maybe that's a hint, because I don't think that color was used for much else besides railroad sleepers and minifig tools at the time.

[Stereo]

3 hours ago, JesseNight said:

What's the other dark gray part lying next to it? Maybe that's a hint, because I don't think that color was used for much else besides railroad sleepers and minifig tools at the time.

That's 30602, it's about 20 years more modern than the old rail system (only Dark Gray in 2003, 2 sets, the tie was ended in 1986).

[ChrisXY]

They other part is from a small AT AT from 2003. I have found more dark grey parts and identified through bricklink.com 

But yes, the railway part is the only one. I am always wondering when buying those bulks how this part gets there by accident. Funny though. 

[CastleRail]

On 4/18/2025 at 10:08 PM, ChrisXY said:

What´s funny though, I have this part only once! I mean how can this be as this part shows up at least multiple times in every set... :D

That will probably be because the clips for the rails are fragile. The rest probably had one part break off and the part was dumped.

[JesseNight]

That's a possibility. Or some stuff got mixed up, like keeping a complete train set separate and not noticing missing 1 sleeper (or it was a spare/extra), unaware it was still somewhere in the rest of the bulk.