Skykomish Depot - HO

Skykomish Depot

The Company Store is proud to offer an HO-scale, laser-cut kit of the 24’ x 106’ Great Northern Skykomish depot as it was in the 1950’s. The wooden station platforms and interior walls are included.

This structure was built in 1898 as a 24 x 60 depot and was located south of the main track which was south of the yard. Also in 1898, the Skykomish Lumber Company was established and soon built a mill beside the main track along the curve west of the yard. In 1906 the lumber company began a logging railroad that ran south of the GN for about a mile and crossed the railroad and the Skykomish River on a wooden Howe Truss bridge just east of the GN wye. The company, its mill, and logging railroad, was acquired by Blodell-Donovan in 1917.

The depot was relocated to the north side of the main line and rebuilt to its final 24 x 106 size in 1922 to clear the ground for the addition of three additional yard tracks and to improve public access to the depot since the bulk of the town, and all of the commercial district, was north of the main track.

The depot was extensively remodeled in 1922 with an expanded waiting room, offices for the Trainmaster, and Yardmaster. A Trainman's room was also provided. The new 46-foot-long freight and baggage room on the east end of the building was built with used lumber from the former eating house at Gold Bar. 

See also RS 378.

The kit

This kit is very high in quality, and. The wooden station platforms and interior walls are included. The model is suitable for any modeling era from 1920s to the late 1950s.

Great Northern Railway blueprints and photographs of the Skykomish depot were used to design the kit.

Approximate footprint: 18" x 6".

Paint Colors

The Great Northern Railway changed its paint scheme for wooden buildings, including depots, from time to time. This makes the color of frame buildings a clue to the time frame you are modeling.

Starting before 1900 depots were painted entirely mineral red. In 1909 new frame depots were painted medium yellow-buff on large wall sections with a darker olive-green trim on windows and doors, belt rails and corner posts. Older depots were repainted into new colors when they required it. In September of 1930, the two-tone gray scheme of light gray on the main structure and darker gray trim on windows, doors, belt rails and corner posts was introduced. Again, existing depots were repainted as required. The gray was followed after 1950 by white as the main color with green trim on windows, doors, belt rails and corner posts. Photos taken in the middle and late 1960s show many depots painted all white with green trim only on windows. A few of the two-tone gray depots were never repainted until after the BN merger. Station name boards were always white with black lettering and black trim along the edges.

See RS 35, RS 53, 154, RS 397, and RS 402.

Explanatory notes:

Note 1: No evidence has been found in AFE or corporate files for dark green or red trim, on early mineral red depots. All reference to dark green or red trim is anecdotal and not supported by any documents, but some think it is consistent with available black and white photos.

Note 2: The change to yellow-buff with olive green trim was made official with the new 1909 depot style featuring belt rails, boxed eaves, angled bay, and different siding widths above and below the belt.  

Note 3:  In Reference Sheet 402 the term “yellow-buff” was used, rather than the yellow-ochre of RS 53 which called the depot trim a “darker ochre.” That term is very confusing and not at all descriptive of a color with a definite green cast. There was some confusion among GNRHS members about these colors when these ochre descriptions were written in the 1970s.

Note 4: Existing “old-style” depots continued in service after 1909. It took time for existing depots to be painted in the new colors; some never were, but went directly to two-tone gray sometime after September, 1930, when that standard was introduced.

Note 5:  Actual boards collected from several depots now exist in the JSRH Archives in St. Paul. These boards have colors consistent with the colors as described here. The colors stated here are also confirmed in documents and corporate files located at JSRH and Minnesota History Museum. Martin Evoy’s extensive files preserved at JSRH have also been carefully examined, as well as paint chips collected by Martin and others.

Note 6: A few depots located on the branch between Alexandria, MN and St. Cloud, MN are thought to have been painted gray with mineral red trim. Examination of paint layers on the boards in the depot in Dalton, MN supports this.