03-14-2015, 01:49 PM
I think that sometimes we worry too much about era of buildings being too old looking for our era. Trains typically run through industrial areas, and industries don't build a new building until it is absolutely necessary. A few years ago Reinhard made the observation that it looked like all of the buildings in Vernon, Ca had been torn down and replaced with new modern buildings. He had been looking at them on Google Earth. When he visited So Cal and we went to look at Vernon where the L.A.J. runs we found that the fronts of the buildings facing major streets had been given a face lift so they looked modern when viewed on Google Earth street view. What happened was a new twist on the old west use of false fronts to make a building look more impressive than it really was inside. Go down a side street next to one of these "modern" looking buildings and you saw that behind the false front was the same old building that was originally built in the 20's, 30's, 40's or 50's.