Railroad colors?


ICG/SOU

ICG/SOU

HO & O (3-rail) trainman
Looking at the Walther's catalog, many of their trackside buildings and structures come in different paint schemes, for different railroads.

Is there a reference or resource somewhere that determines what colors a particular railroad used? I ask because I found an old color photograph in my hometown where the GM&O crossed the SOU tracks, and the interlocking looks to be white with light blue or grey trim. I can't figure out if that interlocking was for SOU or GM&O.

Thanks in advance.
 
ICG/SOU said:
Looking at the Walther's catalog, many of their trackside buildings and structures come in different paint schemes, for different railroads.

Is there a reference or resource somewhere that determines what colors a particular railroad used? I ask because I found an old color photograph in my hometown where the GM&O crossed the SOU tracks, and the interlocking looks to be white with light blue or grey trim. I can't figure out if that interlocking was for SOU or GM&O.

Thanks in advance.
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If it was gray, it could be SRR. But they did change their standard building color several times over the years. One time it was just gray, and at another time, a dark green. If you know which RR was there first, its probably that RR's tower, IIRC. Where was this?
 
Both the Southern and GM&O have historical societies with on-line resources that list things like standard building paint schemes. As CJ said, both railroads changed several times over the decades so knowing exactly when you want to model a structure is important if you want to get it right.
 
I haven't found on either historical site the list of paint schemes. The GM&OHS has incomplete information (under construction) on stations and such.

The town is Laurel, MS. The now NS line was SOU at least in 1938, from looking at a map. Prior to that it was New Orleans and Northeastern. The other line was GM&O, GM&N, and first Mobile, Jackson, and Kansas City. The MJ&KC reached Laurel at the turn of the century, and its facilities later become ICRR until the remaining burned in the late 1980s, after ICG had abandoned everything. I think, from reading my parents' local history books, the MJ&KC was the first railroad to reach Laurel, but am not totally sure. The town had quite a lot of trackage from 3 railroads servicing the 4 or 5 major sawmills that were there years ago.

The picture is in the book Southern Railway, by Tom Murray, page 126. The picture is looking southward, as the northbound Crescent is heading out, in March of 1970. The SOU line runs south to north-northeast, and the GM&O line ran south-southeast to north. The tower appears (it's been gone for years) to be oriented and parallel to the GM&O track on the west side of the diamond.
 
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Yeah, you're right, the GM&O website still hasn't completed their depot section. I thought they were done by now. There's a really good web site at http://stagmiesalrailpics.homestead.com/Depots.html that deals with Alabama stations but many of the same roads ran in both states and the structures are similar. Some are still in original paint and others have been repainted by new owners. Pretty nice selection of photos though. Check out the station in Cullman if you're looking for a challenge to model. :)
 
Thanks for the link, Jim. Some of those stations are pretty neat.

I've always thought it funny when studying history that people (including our generation) never thought to write down or record the mundane (like when something was built or how something was made, or when or what it looked like new). I guess we all subscribe to the fallacy that things will just be there or done just like that forever.
 
ICG/SOU said:
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The town is Laurel, MS. The now NS line was SOU at least in 1938, from looking at a map. Prior to that it was New Orleans and Northeastern. The other line was GM&O, GM&N, and first Mobile, Jackson, and Kansas City. The MJ&KC reached Laurel at the turn of the century, and its facilities later become ICRR until the remaining burned in the late 1980s, after ICG had abandoned everything...
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I think that it would be safe to assume that the tower belonged to the MJ&KC. I haven't got my RE Prince book on Southern handy to see when the NO&NE "arrived" into that part of the state. Plus I can't find any info on the standard "colors" for SRR towers. I do have a picture of the old Maplesville, Al GM&O station taken in the mid 1970's and it was white, I can't remember what the trim was.

There used to be a great Model Railroad shop in Laurel. It was always fun to go in and just browse as you would never know what you would find. Wonder if the shop is still in business? I haven't been to it since 1976, and the owner was about to retire, but his son was definitely going to take it over.

I had painted a Great Nothern S-2 4-8-4 for the son, and even installed constant intensity lights in it for him. He paid me by giving me another S-2 he had. It was badly damaged in the rear of the tender, but boy, what a payment!
 
Hobby Corner was the shop. The owner was Mr. Lindsey, and he passed away a couple of years ago. His son later became mayor for a little while in the 1980s. His family name was famous in that area, since his grandfather invented the Lindsey wagon, which enabled the huge lumber industry (yellow pine) of the late 1800s and early 1900s to grow.

The shop was less than a block from the GM&O/ICG tracks, so it was always cool to go over there and see a train. The building is still there, with the signal in front, but it has become a Hispanic community center from all the folks who have gravitated there.

I used to get all my stuff there as a kid. He was very friendly, and always had something new in that he had to show off. I regret that I never had the foresight to talk to him about trains and such in the local area, because there just aren't many people around anymore who know anything about the railroad.

I went ahead with dark grey trim, and light grey walls. I'm in the process of painting a Cornerstone interlocking tower in those colors for the O scale portion of my layout. The Cornerstone one is a similar design, but a little bigger (twice the amount of windows) and has a little bit more ornate trim. The tower might have been there still while I was growing up, but there is no real trace of it now. The shame with trains is that sometimes the tracks aren't in a good area of town, and therefore avoided.
 
I had thought, from reading local history books, that the MJ&KC was the first railroad to reach Laurel (GM&O predecessor), but it appears the New Orleans and Northeastern may have been first, then Gulf & Ship Island, then Mobile, Jackson & Kansas City. The NO&NE was completed from New Orleans to Meridian, MS in late 1883, one year after the town was founded. The G&SI didn't connect to the crossing in question, and the MJ&KC arrived between 1902-1905. The MJ&KC built a roundhouse, turntable, and shops at Laurel since it was just beyond 100 miles from Mobile.

The real question would be does the existing railway build the tower for the crossing road, or does the crossing road build the tower?
 
Trey, trying to keep which railroad did what when down here is a real challenge. I've read Railroads of Alabama now about four times and I still get confused as to what is the predecessor to what. The fact that so many went bankrupt and came out again with similar names makes it even more confusing. Knowing railroad history in the West was a breeze compared to the Southeast.

As to your tower question, there was no hard and fast rule. In most case, the cost of constructing, maintenance, and staffing of the tower was shared between the two railroads. Even the poverty stricken Tonopah and Tidewater had to pay it's half of the costs to the UP for the crossing at Crucero until 1938, when the T&T was cut back from Ludlow to Crucero and the crossing became just an interchange point. There were cases where the crossing railraod was strong armed into paying the total cost if they wanted permission to cross the tracks of the bigger line. The NKP had several crossings with the NYC where they paid for the whole shebang until late in the 50's.
 
Jim and Carey,

thanks for the help. I know what you mean about researching railroads. Last night, with my last post, I had read about 30 pages of "Encyclopedia of Mississippi History," which was published in 1907. The whole antebellum section on railroads, how they went bankrupt after the war, etc. was extremely confusing. Many of the towns named don't exist anymore, so following along with a map is difficult. Of the places that do still exist, some of the routes named (like Vicksburg to Hattiesburg) seem foreign to me, since I think now that 'why would anyone want to go that way and bypass Jackson?'. Different times, different priorities, etc.

One thing that was neat in the book was it had a list of the current (as of 1907) railways and their mileages and primary routes. It appears that a lot of the current lines had been built by then, since the recognizable town names had been connected by rail. It also explained two railroads which I hadn't understood how they got to Mississippi, the L&N line from New Orleans to Mobile, and the Frisco from Memphis to Birmingham. Both names seem counter intuitive to me, since Louisville, KY, Nashville, TN, St. Louis, MO, and San Francisco, CA don't seem to have much to do with the state.

And, as another rambling side note, if my era was earlier, say 1920s, my hometown itself would lend to an interesting layout since there were 3 major railroads, two with passenger service, with one having a engine facility and shops, 5 sawmills, 1 Masonite Corporation, a cotton mill, a cotton compress, a wagon company, a cannery, a sugar refinery (sugar beets), some petroleum, all in the downtown area, with lots of varied track work. A couple of scale square miles would be all that was needed.
 
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