Werris Creek Station 'Final' Colours

On the way back from the New England Convention at Armidale, Chris and I stopped at Werris Creek to work out the colours that the station buildings were painted in 1972.

While there I also photographed and took measurements of the railway hotel and refreshment rooms for the next part of the station complex and yes, it was that really hot Monday (40 deg. C ?).

I walked around taking a few more photos of the main building and I noticed that some areas of the paint work had been damaged by platform seats. What showed through nicely was the mid-green of an earlier painting of the window sills. I also found an awning post with some damage about 1400mm up from the base and no I didn't take a pen knife with me. It does look like someone has purposely cut through the layers.

While I was asking the museum volunteers if there were any colour photos taken in 1972 (no luck) I was taken upstairs into the old hotel section and shown a model railway that is being built under contract by someone from Queensland for $70,000. The layout trackwork was Peco and it will be run with a Digitrax Loconet system, press the button and watch the trains run. Unfortunately for some ridiculous reason it was about 600mm off the floor. It should have been about 1200mm so that maintenance could easily be carried out underneath and a raised platform with railings could have been built so that children could see easily. Given the above, I do wonder who sliced into the awning post to reveal the colours, I don't mind though.

Here are the photos that confirm the colours.

Green on the window sills of the ground floor windows

Layers of the different colours painted over the decades

The colour layers on the awning post are very useful and with the photos I have received from several people and the ones I found on the Internet I now am about 95% certain of what was there in 1972.

Here are a few dates from photos of the post colours:

Current brown top coat painted in 2005.
All dark green in 2002
All dark green in 1996
All cream in 1979, 1981 and 1983
Painted all mid-green after 1969 and before 1972
Base black, post brown and cast iron brackets cream in 1963
In 1961 the awning post seems to have been black base, green post, mid-stone top of post and cream cast iron brackets, this is based on the lightened Weston Langford photo of the earlier post.

This black and white photo taken by Tony McIlwain in 1972 has been very useful in showing the various colours when cross referenced with the other photos and the colour information from last Monday.

Now comes the interesting job of building the model but don't hold your breath in might be a while before the next Werris Creek instalment.

"We will now return you to our normal programming....."