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....."

New England Convention

I would like to thank the organisers and members of the New England Model Railway Club, the presenters, the clinic presenters and any other helpers for a very enjoyable weekend. This was the first time that I have been able to get to the convention as work always interfered previously.

I spent the weekend talking, talking and talking with old friends, new ones and managing to put faces to names, such as fellow bloggers. Due to the socialising I only managed to get to one presentation and found it very interesting.

The layouts being shown were of a high standard and the commercial representation was good, too good, my bank balance is certainly lower.

Here are a few photos of Bullenbung Creek, the other two layouts were very nicely detailed and sceniced On30, one Australian themed (sorry I can't remember the name) and the other was the Charging Moose US Oregon style of Geoff Nott and John Montgomary. I didn't take a tripod and due to the nature of the scenery on the layouts I was only able to take photos of Bullenbung Creek as it was flat and I do time exposures. I was allowed to place my camera on the roads near the front of the layout. I also took a couple of videos using a small video camera of the sports variety which doesn't have a screen. Unfortunately all I got was a black screen with sound. The video camera wouldn't work until I deleted both files, I have no idea what happened and I was looking forward to seeing the videos.

Attendees were asked to bring along a model to show so I took a NSWGR Distant Signal, more on that in a later post. The models ranged across scales and prototypes but were invariably of a high standard.

Throughout the weekend there were many lucky door prize draws based on your registration number, the prizes being donated by various commercial interests, those in attendance and some that were not present.

The dinner on the Saturday night was excellent both the company around the table and the food. The after dinner speaker (Ian White I believe) was incredibly funny as he described the trials and tribulations of building his own 2 foot gauge railway on a country property.

Chris and I arrived home from the convention yesterday afternoon after staging our trip south over three days. As some may know Chris has back issues and we need to stop very hour or two so that she can get out and move around to loosen up. So we left the convention on Sunday afternoon, drove around Armidale and then down to Tamworth for an overnight stay.

On Monday we stopped in at Werris Creek so that I could investigate the 1972 station building colours and take more photos and dimensions of the refreshment room building. I will give an update on the blog soon. This done we again headed south to Singleton.

On Tuesday morning we drove into Maitland and surprised Chris' 93 year old mother and her sister who go there to have a coffee. After lunch we set off home.

We will certainly be going to the next convention, all in all, a great five days away.

Werris Creek Station - More Colour Information

Today I received an email from Tony McIlwain with a number of photos attached.

Thank you Tony, they were very much appreciated and useful.

There were three colour photos of the station along with ten black and whites. The colour photos were from 1972 and two of them have caused a bit of consternation regarding the colour of the awning posts and cast iron brackets. The photos appear to show the posts and brackets as being green. Tony postulated that the green could be the same as that on the window sills of the hotel and refreshment rooms however the sills were green in the 1963 photo in the last post so it is unlikely that it would be the same. It is more likely that the green would be the same as the dark green used on station platform seats, Newcastle Station awning posts and brackets and other railway infrastructure of the era.

Here are the photos as received and then after a bit of adjustment.

Photo 1

Werris Creek Station - 1972 - Vintage Train to Glen Innes - Tony McIlwain

 Adjusted.


Photo 2

Werris Creek Station - 1972 - Vintage Train to Glen Innes 2 - Tony McIlwain

Adjusted

Photo 3

Werris Creek Station - 1972 - Wallangarra Tour return at Werris Creek - Tony McIlwain

Adjusted

The adjustments were made to bring the colours of the buffer beam, the locos, the red brick of the refreshment rooms and the common bricks of the upper storey of the main building to a more correct tone. The photos were also lightened to bring out the detail in the shadow of the awning.

The third photo is included here out of interest as it doesn't add much to the colour information.

After this, I then adjusted a few of the photos from the earlier posts to see what showed.

Here are the 1969 photos, the first clearly shows the brown post and cream cast iron bracket above and the second was lightened to hopefully better show the colour surrounding the white rectangles between the ground floor and the first floor of the refreshment room/hotel building as well as below the gutter. This colour, what ever it is can also be seen above the first floor on the main building.

Now for an answer to the unknown colour around the white rectangles here are some black and white photos taken in 1971.

It now becomes apparent that there isn't a different colour around the white rectangles, it was just a shadow effect. Also shown in the last photo is the single colour of the awning post and brackets, looks green to me.

Lastly John Hurst's photo of 3801 at Werris Creek from the previous post (taken in 1973) has been adjusted to see if the 'cream' trim on the buildings could be more like the paler colour of the trim in the above photos. It may be that this was Light Stone.

It a seems to me that the awning posts and cast iron brackets were painted green sometime between 1969 and 1971. The rest of the paintwork seems to be the same between the two years.

So unless someone else can shed any light on the issue it looks like the posts and brackets will be green as Ron's era for his Werris Creek layout is nominally 1972.

Now, though what is the colour of the trim around the bottom of the walls which shows up well in the last black and white photo and also the window sills of the ground floor windows?

Based on this adjusted Weston Langford taken in 1961 I believe that it is dark brown.

I think that I had better stop at this point, then again I am travelling north in two weeks.