Monson Village Station Colors: Early

[Brian Bond]

Does anyone have information on pre-1919 Monson Village station colors? Photos clearly show that the windows and trim are a darker color than the siding. Light green/dark green? Tanish with brown trim? Depot Buff? I've used a couple of different colorizing applications and get some really odd colors for the station. Engine and cars look close but the roof was slate, not red.

Any assistance would be appreciated. I assume the engine house, pre-fire was the same color. All pre-red with white trime. Some colorization programs show the wood shed being a lighter color than the station and enginehouse but that could all be based on how the sunlight hit the structures.

Brian

[Benjamin Richards]

I don't have any direct info for you but I recently had a fascinating conversation with a gentleman about using old B/W photos for historical color research. Basically, different colors will show up lighter or darker based on what kind of film was used, light incidence angle, etc. It's quite complex.

Unfortunately I can't remember his name but he is working with Eric et al. on Coach 9; maybe Eric can chime in.

I've used those colorize apps before. They aren't actually extracting any information from the photo itself; the app is just guessing based on what it's seen in photos of similar composition. So don't put too much stock in the results.

[James Patten]

There's some interesting discussions on Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum (https://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/list.php?1) regarding figuring out colors from B&W - basically it depends on the film technology used at the time.

[John Kokas]

Not to mention also the software you are using for color rendition.  I learned with converting B/W to color for the purpose of doing watercolor paintings of old scenes.  There is a noticeable difference between various software packages.