I posted a couple of photos in that same folder from the KVR taken on a cycle
trip about 10 years ago. The shed was on the KVR just out of Grand Forks and
halfway to the summit at Eholt. This one had the trim painted the same red as
the main structure. The Brookmere section house has the trim a dark brown. This
could have been repainted post abandonment, but the shed hasn't been repainted
since sometime prior to abandonment of the line in the 1970's
The red of course varied as you can see by the samples depending on whether you
looked on the sunny side, where it has faded, to the north side where it might
be affected by being colder and wetter. So really it boils down to what looks
good to you under your layout lighting conditions. Trying to settle on a
"standard" colour would be meaningless. Even if you could find the original
colour, it wouldn't look right when scaled down to model size and then brought
indoors under artificial light.
It makes sense to use some sort of barn red/oxide red as this would be the type
of pigment that was readily available and that would last outdoors (hence why
so many barns were painted "barn red" and boxcars painted "boxcar red"). Prior
to the invention of more modern pigments, paint colours used outdoors were
fairly limited to the "earth" colours like oxide red, yellow ochre, and white,
other colours would just fade too fast under the sun. It is only since the
invention of some of the synthetic pigments that there have been brighter
colours available that wouldn't fade rather quickly outdoors.
They probably would have used the yellow/cream colours for the window trim on
stations and the brown for the side trim and doors, but for a utilitarian
structure like a shed, they might just paint the whole thing with the same can
of paint that they had in their hand at the time...
Brent
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Suther-rail" <sutherail@...> wrote:
I just added a few photos that include structures to the Saugeen shed file,
even though they are nowhere close to that location! The trim was often a
darker colour, as discussed, but I remember it as a darker brown, not black.
And sometimes the trim just used the main colour. I think it depended on the
B&B gang to a certain extent. They would sometimes do additional decorative
touches such as using the yellow/cream colour from the windows on gable
fascia.
Interestingly, looking at some of my station pictures, while the main windows
are often the light colour, the screens and storm windows usually seem to be
the standard brown.
John
