CF Caboose Lettering

Mon Jul 20 10:38:48 EDT 2015

Thanks, Ken. I am "picky" myself, and I appreciate everything you have to say on the subject. I was just repeating what somebody told me in the past - that it was "Railroad Roman." Nobody is more aware than I am that N&W did things their own way, and I am now aware of another place where this was true. BTW: there are few models or decals where the height of the block "N&W" is correct. For that matter, many of them don't even get the thickness right. But we do the best we can. Thanks for your input.
Jim Nichols  

     On Monday, July 20, 2015 6:02 AM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

 Jim

Similar, but any roman typeface is going to be similar. There are loads of variations. When I was in college, I had classes on lettering, where we learned to hand letter, the differences in fonts, both subtle and not. The classes were, to be honest, a lot of torture. Don''t get me wrong, I am glad to have learned it well, they do not teach this type of thing today, and it shows in a lot of how people use lettering or fonts.

Serifs are different, letter and stroke weights are very different, and all contribute to how the font looks. To people who study this, there is a huge difference in Times Roman and say, Bodoni

I have studied this subejct far closer than I probably should, and when I was a 10 year old modeler, and not a very good one, when I found a set of "Railroad Roman" decals or dry transfers, I was thrilled, it was close, but a few years on from then, I see how it looks wrong, and gets worse year by year. 

Several decal companies use computer fonts to create their letters. I can assure you, short of Ben Coifman's Rail Fonts, those fonts are not the same as what the railroads used a number of years ago. A font basically refers to a full typeface, letters, numbers and symbols, many railroad drawings for lettering to be used show only a set of letters for that specific purpose. Look at the drawings for the Norfolk and Western passenger cars, only the letters used in those three words exist on the drawing, there is no "Q" or "X" or even more common "B". In only a few cases, NKP, C&O seem to have developed drawings so elaborate, they are complete, detailed, with every curve and arc designated with specific sizes. The NKP had drawings even for different sizes of the same letters.

N&W and VGN went to lesser extents on such. Much lettering was somewhat left to the painter on site, but generally drawings were provided as a guideline.

If you want correct lettering for models, only a few manufacturers do it right, most do not. It requires a lot of research and effort to recreate this.

An example from real life. The Virginian caboose lettering that was in an arc. When I was in the process to restore my VGN 342 (now at Victoria) there was no drawing in NS files for the Virginian lettering, none in the microfilm, none in the vault. The original drawings were gone before they got microfilmed in the 1960s.  

I searched out and found what I believe to be the last VGN painted caboose, a wooden caboose on private property at Ripplemead. It was painted and sold to the owner of the Virginian Limestone company right after the merger. With permission of the property owner, one cold and windy late fall day, I went out with my masking tape, roll of tracing paper, tape measure and pencils, and traced what remained of that lettering, that was 1988. In addition, I photographed it extensively.

Over the next few months, I went and recreated from my tracings a full size drawing of that lettering, believe me, a lot of it was gone, but enough of the critical things were there, I could reproduce it. This was before the days of computers.

When you look at the Champ decals compared to the original, you see how far off that was, not the same typeface, not the same spacing, nothing was even close. When NS donated and repainted the VGN 321 to Virginia Museum of Transportation, they ran into the same problem, no lettering drawing, what was put on the cab was someone's best guess and way off. It now has my lettering on it.

The lesson is, if you want it right, you need to research it, study it, and learn what is right and what is not. If you are picky, you want it right, if you don't, it is your railroad, do whatever you like! Me? I want mine to be correct, I look at a lot of models with factory paint, and they go great lengths to get the right number of rivets or whatever correct, then screw up the lettering, the last and most visible jewel in the project. It has turned me away from a number of purchases.

Best
Ken

On Jul 19, 2015, at 10:53 AM, NW Modeling List wrote:

> Ken, 
> Did some googling and found the following  http://www.railfonts.com/Samples/cnw-demo.html 
> which looks pretty close to your upper sample to my eye.  What do you think?
> Jim Cochran
> 
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 8:31 PM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> Not to disagree with you Jim, but Norfolk and Western lettering, as used on the freight cars and cabooses is pretty dramatically different from "Railroad Roman"
> 
> The attached sample is from Norfolk and Western caboose lettering drawing that I have drawn, and railroad roman font on the bottom.
> 
> Ken Miller
> 
> 
> On Jul 18, 2015, at 12:07 PM, NW Modeling List wrote:
> 
> > "Railroad Roman" font with letters and numbers 7" high.
> >
> > Jim Nichols
> >
> >
> >
> > On Saturday, July 18, 2015 10:49 AM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > What style of lettering did N&W use on its CF class wood sided caboose in the 1940's and 1950's? I am doing research for a scratch building project.
> > Very Respectfully,
> > Joseph Congemi
> >
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