Thursday, June 29, 2017

Water tanks




Figuring out when a picture was taken is a fine art. While there is no magic bullet to find the exact day month or year unless it happens to be somewhere in the photo, you can usually get close using several different points.

The first is fashion, what are the people wearing, how is their hair cut etc... a picture of Seattle in the 1990's would probably show young adults wearing flannels and the men having longer hair, where as the same picture in the sixties the men would have the "Bobby Kennedy" look (think Willem Dafoe in Mississippi Burning). Fashion can usually give you an idea of the decade.
The second is vehicles, what is the newest vehicle in the picture. Now remember the new models usually come out in the summer or fall, so it is possible for a 1980 Honda Civic to be present in a late 1979 scene.

The final item is structures, what is and isnt there in a photo or how something is painted, can give you a good time frame on when it was taken.  However since structures can be demolished it is important to use multiple factors when dating a photo.

So how does this tie in with the title water tanks you ask? Anyone who has driven through Yuma on Interstate 8 knows that on the hill above 16th street sit three 3000 gallon water tanks.  When I moved to Yuma in 2008 these tanks were light blue with a desert mural painted in typical southwest colors. A few weeks ago I was driving by and noticed they were working on the tanks. A few days later they painted one tank tan and a week or so after that they painted the second tank tan. Now only one tank remains with the mural.

So why is this important, well according to the city the tanks are refurbished and repainted approximately every 15 to 20 years. Now the interesting thing about these tanks specifically is that they have worn several different paint schemes over the years, making it fairly easy to use the tanks to date pictures taken in the yard.

From my research it apears that two tanks were constructed on that hill sometime in the 1950's ( my notes say 1955).  I say this because they are present in aerial photos of the area prior to the construction of the Dieselville Yard. However in aerial photos from 1941 and 1953 the tanks are noticeably absent.  The tanks appear light in color but since the photos are all black and white I do not know if they are white or not. I have encountered a picture of black widow F units in decent repair, where the tanks say "Yuma" but there is no date on the photo. also I have encountered a photo looking south from 16th street prior to Dieselville construction and the tanks say "Yuma".
Photos from the 1970's and early 1980's show that the tanks were white in color with "YUMA" written on them in black. Again not all of the photos are in color but in the ones that are the tanks appear white. This may have been the color scheme all along however once again prior to the 1970's most the photos I have encountered were black and white.

In 1984 the tanks were painted "water blue" but retained the "YUMA" written in black.
In a Google Earth image from May 1994 the tanks once again appear to be a light color such as white or tan however in aerial photos where I know the tanks are blue it is hard to tell so the color could still be blue.  A June 1996 image from Google Earth shows that the third tank had been constructed some time between then and May of 1994.

According to the Yuma Sun (local news paper) the mural was painted on the tanks in 1999.
Which brings us to the current year where the tanks are in the process of being painted tan. The city states there are no plans to repaint the mural at this time although the city logo might be painted on them.  So we will just have to see what the next refurbishment brings in the way of water tank decor.

As for the ramifications for my planned layout, in all but the last two years of my floating era there were only 2 tanks. For the early years they were white and for late 1980's they were blue. This type of tank is simple enough to make, using pvc pipe of the correct diameter, so I am thinking of making two sets of tanks one white and one blue and have them be interchangable. And since we are already tweaking some infrastructure for ease of era flexibility in my world that third tank may not get built. It was only around for maybe a year in my era, but that is a decision for another day. The big question is, where will this journey take me next.

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