What was the actual MP location of the passenger depot in Aberdeen, Ga.? Aberdeen is now Peachtree City,Ga on the busy CSX Atlanta to Manchester/Jacksonville line. The ACL and ABC TT's show 35 miles from Atlanta, but no actual MP location. Also, what color was the station sign painted? My dad is mak- ing an "Aberdeen" sign to hang on our utility building with our other RR stuff. Thanks

Brad Frank Peachtree City,Ga

-- Brad Frank (abcrr@attbi.com), May 08, 2002

Answers

Good thread. Now to totally confuse things. I remember visiting the Aulander NC depot in 1986 and recall that it had a wooden sign board. However, the peeling paint around the white letters looked blue to me. My impression was that royal purple weathered to a light "chalky" purple - the Aulander sign didn't look purple. A possible exception to the rule?

Finally, some of the ACL depots with covered sheds on the Florence to Augusta mainline were painted with "Atlantic Coast Line RR Co" spelled out in white gothic letters on a black background. Probably a latter day version of the Emporia VA paint scheme although one of the SC depots was still painted gray/brown.

-- Buddy Hill (palmettoLTD@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.

Marc, you are correct regarding most depot signs seen in N.C. and elsewhere along the "original" ACL. These signs look to be ceramic- coated steel and the color was indeed a deep blue, which ACL standard blueprints called "smalted blue." From a distance it resembles the Royal Purple but is a bit different. However, Western Division (ex- AB&C) depots received new wood signs after the ACL takeover, and these were in fact painted with the Royal Purple color, the same as on diesels and passenger cars. (Royal Purple was also used as the trim color on wood buildings from the early to late 1950s.) I have seen a few other wood depot or place name signs along the "original" ACL, and in each case, if the material was wood, the color was Royal Purple. One interesting recent example was a few years ago when the Emporia, Va., freight depot was undergoing renovation - the outer wood siding was removed revealing large "Atlantic Coast Line Freight Station" lettering on the layer of wood siding underneath, in white on Royal Purple. The "smalted blue" apparently was used only on the metal depot name signs. At least one of these has been preserved, from Kerr, N.C., in the Wilmington Railroad Museum.

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), May 09, 2002.

To clarify Larry's response a little, the background "purple" on the surviving ACL depot signs I have seen are not truly purple. They are a very deep "cobalt" purplish blue. This is in contrast to all of the other purple ACL signs that I have seen that were well and truly purple. I don't know why the depot signs, at least here in NC, were really a dark blue background. I hope this helps a little. Best wishes and God Bless, Marc

-- Marc L. Hamel, NCDOT Rail Div. (gigsup@aol.com), May 08, 2002.

Hello Brad,

The Aberdeen ACL milepost was NB-831 - see the station list on p. 229 of my AB&C book. I don't have handy the AB&C milepost number before the ACL merger, but can get that if you want. In ACL days, the station signboard was white Roman style letters on purple. I am not sure of the signboard colors in AB&C days, but think it was black lettering on white.

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), May 08, 2002.