Color of 1920's Anthony, Fla. SAL Depot?

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We at the Ocala Model Railroaders' have a photo of the Anthony, Florida depot on the SAL main line made around 1920. Of course the photo is in black and white, and we can not tell the color of the depot. It has two passing sidings with a wood water tank. It looks like the roof is metal shingles, but not sure. Any help would be appreciated as we are building an HO model for the clubs HO Modules. Allen L. Wiener, Ocala, FL, OMRR

-- Allen L. Wiener (SouRwy@aol.com), September 13, 2000

Answers

"SHADES OF THE SEABOARD"! The year is 2000! CSX has taken over all the ex-C&O,B&O,L&N,SAL,ACL,and whatever else.They have painted all,or most of thier buildings a yukky grey and blue.NO,NO,NO.Yesterday evening after I had replied to this thread,I made a little trip out to the old ACL shops at Tampa.I had not been out there for several months.Was I SURPRISED! In the SCL days the RR used to wash locomotives here and there was some kind of support building next to the ramp.That building is now painted SEABOARD,buff, with dark brown trim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAT IS GOING ON??????????

-- J.Oates (jlosal@ mindspring.com), September 15, 2000.

I seem to remember the Delray Beach and West Palm Beach Depots as being sort of a pinkish orange. I don't think is was a true pink. The restored WPB Amtrak depot is painted a color that, to my fading memory, is a good match. This was a an excellent restoration job and it may be possible to find out who did it and contact them for the paint information. I seem to remember seeing a plaque in the court yard giving information on the people responsible for the restoration. Maybe one of our S. Fla members could stop by for a look.

-- Jim Coviello (jcovi60516@aol.com), September 14, 2000.

Good question. My knowlege of manufactoring paint is limited, but I think the pigments used to give paints their colors are typically metal oxides. Tan (buff) would be a mixture of white titanium(?) oxide, reddish-brown iron oxide, and yellow iron oxide pigments. It would seem safe to assume that percentages of the various pigments changed between batches and/or suppliers. Depending on which batch was used, it seems logical that the base color of SAL structures could range from yellowish, tan, to beige. Fading and chalking of a paint containing more of a reddish colored pigment could give a building a pink look. At least thats one way to explain the apparent variations in coloration observed so far.

More questions: Does anyone know what color the SAL's stucco stations were originally painted? pink? buff/brown?

I'm curious if the SAL's financial condition forced it to abandon the gray/green paint scheme used on wood structures in order to reduce the cost of maintaining two separate paint stockpiles-gray/green for wood depots and buff/brown for stucco depots. I guess the buff/brown looked better on wood depots than gray/green would have looked on stucco stations.

Finally, we're still waiting on the results from the analysis of SAL paint chips - both the gray/green and buff(tan)/brown paint schemes. Will share the results as soon as it comes in.

-- Buddy Hill (palmettoLTD@hotmail.com), September 14, 2000.


Depots were not the only buildings painted in this scheme,as follows, Buff(tan if you prefer)basic color with dark brown trim.All structures were painted like this.I don't know when it was phased out. I remember by the early 60's they were starting to paint them white with dark green trim.I have either seen the buff in slides or prints or books somewhere.My big question,this paint faded very badly,especially in Florida and looked like pink! Or as some say they were pink? I'm just reading a book,where the author talks about a pink Seaboard station.Does anyone know? We can find no official paint information from the RR.Last year the Sebring,FL station was rebuilt and I was told they got the original paint scheme from someone in Amtrak.

-- J Oates (jlosal@ mindspring.com), September 14, 2000.

SAL structure painting practices are somewhat of a mystery due to the fact that so little hard data has surfaced. The earliest reference to SAL painting practices that I am aware of is a Julian Cavalier drawing of an SAL Std. No.4 depot in a late 80's issue of RMC. The brief text accompanying the N-scale drawing states that Mr. Cavalier based his drawing on a 1938/39 SAL blueprint and that a gray/green paint scheme was specified. Unfortunately there is no information available to tell us if this was the first paint scheme used by the SAL.

The next paint scheme used by the SAL consisted of tan/brown. The year of the switch from gray/green to tan/brown has not surfaced yet. Previously, I stated that the body color was more of a depot buff (pale yellow) than a tan. However, having had the opportunity review more color photos and revisit earlier ones, it appears the body color was definitely a tan color. (Sorry for doubting you Warren). However, in late afternoon light it does take on a yellowish hue.

There is still an outside chance to determine the SAL paint scheme used during the teens and twenties. In Bohi & Grant's book "The Country Railroad Station in America" there are two photos of the early SAL wood framed passenger depots in Ocala and Orlando (good looking buildings). The structures appear to be painted in a medium to light body color with dark trim. The Ocala photo appears to be a post card view. Knowing that most B&W post cards were "colorized", if you can locate one of these post cards, it might tell you the color scheme in use at that time of the photo. Of course that depends on how faithful the post card printers were to the prototype when coloring a photo-a post card collector may be able to answer that question for you. If you do manage to locate the above post card please post your findings as every bit of info helps pin down dates and colors.

Sorry to be so vague with this answer, but there simply is so little hard data available. Hope this helps.

-- Buddy Hill (palmettoLTD@hotmail.com), September 14, 2000.



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