Paint

Don't overlook, green, yellow, beige and brown.

Blue tends to fade quickly.

Homes and businesses used a lot of white in the 1950's.

Dave, I'm going to try to

Dave,

I'm going to try to find some footage on youtube to see if I can find colour film of railroad scenes of the 50s. So far yellow are green might be neat. I'll check NFB site also.

Colors?

Hi Dee, Color of paint used was often regional in the 50's ( same for bricks). Folks tended to use what worked well in their area and cost less. Now days with Home Depot being everywhere there's probably a lot less regional differences. I'd search for photos of the general area  and try to find some in color. Not as much color film was shot in the 50's so you might have to look for a bit later era and try to figure out if the colors shown look like they were there 30 year back :> ) .  A lot of towns try to retain some of their historical flavor so it might not be too hard to find some useful shots....DaveB

DaveB, I found this shot -

DaveB,

I found this shot - 1950s eastern Canada; not the specific place I model, but the structures are similar.

1950s eastern Canada

   Cool find.   I see some blues or maybe bluish greys in there ,also a couple of yellows,and some barn reds. So that little blue boat shed looks like a go to me :> ) ....DaveB

You can have your faded light blue.

Check this out: https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color-through-the-decades/1950s

And this: https://blog.retroplanet.com/1950s-exterior-paint-colors/

The color samples are marked interior or interior/exterior. It says 50's, but to me looks later than that, so I assume my perception is off, not theirs. Unfortunately it's not per-region.

My grandfather ran a paint store for a while, by the time I was old enough to be aware of it all he had a big out-building in back of his house filled with the left-overs of the business. Lots of colored posters, books of color samples, mixing machines, not so much actual paint. It for sure wasn't all white.

But my perception, growing up in the 60's on the east coast, is that almost everything from the 50's and 60's was white. All the old houses were white, unless they were brick. Cape Cods with white clapboard siding and black shutters. In the 70's a huge housing development was built near my home, and those houses all were some pastel color, they had about 4 or 5 they used over and over, light blue, beige, yellow, avocado. White seemed to be not allowed. No pink. Maybe pink was a mid-westerner thing, or maybe Mellencamp made it up.

Of course tract housing in general wasn't that widespread, it started after WWII, but wasn't typical until the 70's.

EW, Great links!  I have an

EW,

Great links! 

I have an old DVD that has some CNR footage on it in colour from the fifties, and most of the structures were white with dark brown trim or black on the windows. I recall my mother telling me this was practical for her, as it hid the soot from the coal burning furnaces. I'll have to go through my boxes to find it.

That looks like a boat shed.

It looks  like a shed that is part of a boat works judging by the life preserver ring and the fenders hung on the sides.

Railroad structures might be a uniform design, colors & trim colors, but houses and business buildings might be any color that the owner liked.  Also some buildings might be older and faded or have soot covering them, but any town would probably have at least one building that was freshly painted.  Don't weather everything.  Buildings farther from the right of way may not be covered with soot. 

The picture of the small village looks like it may be farther from the railroad.  There appears to be very little soot on the buildings, and they seem to be a rainbow of colors.

One thing to keep in mind with vehicle colors.  Cars and trucks were painted in nonmetallic colors until the 1970's.   Hot rodders were using metal flake and candy colors in the 1960's in California, but I'm not sure when of if those colors became common in the east or in Canada.  I think it was in the late 1960's or early 1970's when car and truck manufacturers started using metalic colors.  The exception were fire depts.  I'm not sure when they started using gold leaf on their equipment, but I think they started at least by 1950, and maybe even before. 

Russ, Good points and good

Russ, 

Good points and good info.

Because my branch line terminus is a popular summer destination in its day, I kept the depot in better shape in regards to a good painting every two years; depicting its paint hasn't been exposed to the harsh salty windy winters for years...

...unlike the freight shed that hasn't seen a paint job for years, but still gets what's needed.

Also this shed was replaced by one that burned down in the winter and this one was built in the spring.

And here is a brand new tank on a old stone base; the old wooden tank got blown off from by the tail end of a hurricane in the spring.

I look forward to making a building or two with colour for my fourth module.

Pink

Growing up our house was pink, built in 1957, the same year I was born. Other houses on the street were light green, light blue, white, that was in a new subdivision. As to cars, the metallic colours were much later, like 1980’s. It was the auto industry that prompted the development of brighter colours, initially they faded badly, rusted and faded. A 1980-1990 era car would fade pretty badly after a few years, not to mention rust out after 5 years or so. My current 15 year old car really hasn’t faded that much, or rusted, at least on the body. In the 70’s or even later a car would have rusted away after 15 years!

You can pretty easily find

You can pretty easily find color charts for old cars by year. Especially for anything remotely collectable, where people might be trying to restore it to the original color. Just watch out for pics of classic cars for sale which might have been repainted with a wrong color.

A split-window VW in "tobacco brown" would look great on your layout.

Some info

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/a-brief-history-of-car-colors-and-why-are-we-so-boring-now/
 

dee you might find this interesting. It also has some information backed up by facts and color charts. 

My 2 cents....

Metallic auto paint was used on premium models in the 30's not common but available, by the mid fifties metallics were common, as far as housing the earliest post war developments most of the houses were white, however as development continued colors were a selling feature to help differentiate your house from the others in the neighborhood of the same design....My mom's house was built in 1954, and started out as a Salmon color, but by the time we moved in, it was 2 owners later and avocado green.....As it goes, color was available in the fifties just as easily as today, but darker colors would fade, and cost more, so cheap folks, IE most frugal homeowners stuck with the light colors....pretty much you choice...

Peace, Bill

Some great info. I'm somewhat

Some great info. I'm somewhat stoked about this and just might make a few structures in advance for my fouth module.