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Metro completes exterior restoration of Lankershim depot
Beautiful building. Always nice to see a depot restored.
Great location for a period film scene and located in the studios backyard.
Great story. However, the depot is surely not wearing its “original” colors. When it was built, the SP was using a “drab” color – akin to a slate gray – for most of its wood-framed passenger and combination depots system-wide. Sash windows and doors were variously white or maroon/wine red in this interval. I would bet $20 (based on abundant experience as an SP depots paint consultant) that Toluca-Lankersham depot wore the drab paint at or near the time of its initial construction.
Within just a few years of instituting the “Huntington drab” paint, Collis Huntington (then SP’s president) died, and the company shifted to a scheme similar to this “mustard and brown” format, but with a third hue, a deep amber tone, that was placed on the external wainscoat portion of the walls, from the foundation line up to the average height of 6 feet. Roofs tended to be shingled, with the wooden shingles dipped in preservative paint that was generally a rich, bright green.
Regardless, the revived depot looks great from what the story’s photo reveals, and the colors look pretty accurate for a 1930s+ interpretation…but nor for any period prior to 1930.
I looked at other pictures of this station and thought it was interesting that although it may have been a commuter passenger station, it looked like it also had a Station Agent who the local residents would see when they picked up their latest order from the Sears Roebuck catalog, along with any other LCL express.
Bruce, according to the book “Pacific Electric Station” it had a station agent (Passenger: PE, SP, interline tickets; Freight: in any quantity, carload or less; Express).
Hope they can keep the Vally taggers away…
I didn’t think much of that Lankershim depot while I was living in the neighborhood there during the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s good to now that this relic has survived a test of time and is finally going to be put back to use for the good of the community there.