This came up in a conversation I was having the other day:

Who makes railroad conductor and trainman uniforms these days? I know transquip markets them, and remember reading that Cintas provides them for Metra employees now, but what about other sources?

We use a local uniform shop that supplies us with a black dress uniform that is intended for the fire department. We purchase the coat and vest through our uniform supplier and have our conductors and trainmen purchase the trousers on there own since almost any black dress trouser will match.

B. Allan

We are provided just the conductor's hat, purchased from Transquip. The conductors must purchase their own coats and pants. The white shirts with SAM Shortline logo are provided, but the logo is usually hidden by the vest.

If your pants are purchased separetely from the coat and vest, be sure to try and find a pair that are of the same fabric as the coat (100% cotton or 80% poly, 20% cotton, for example). Even then, different dye lots will be slightly different in appearance. I've had a tough time finding pants to match my coat, an off the rack 4-button dress coat that looks pretty good. I'm on my 5th pair of black pants in as many years and I cannot wear some of the pants with my coat because of fading. Looks really funny to have a nice, black coat or vest and a faded black pair of 100% cotton twill pants. Fortunately, in this southern clime, we don't have to wear coats all thet often, usually just in the winter, so it doesn't look all that bad to have some fading of the pants.

I wonder how well they matched, back in the day.

I would think pretty well. Some of our conductors have opted to purchase entire uniforms from Transquip, and if the pants and coat are worn and drycleaned the same amount they should continue to match. The well-used conductors uniforms in Thronateeska's collection still match well. I opted to not spend the roughly $400 for a full uniform from Transquip, and piecemealed mine together for considerably less. However, since I don't wear the coat that much, and the pants are worn many times between wearing them with the coat, the pants fade much more than the coat has faded. Also, the pants are laundered, whereas the coat is drycleaned. I'm sure that makes a difference. Lastly, as much as I prefer 100% cotton pants to polyester blends, the polyester stays looking crisp (and black) better than the cotton.

I've noticed the "Flying Cross" brand of police and fire "Class A" uniform jackets match an older style 4 button conductor's jacket pretty well. They have fake pockets flaps on the front, but I imagine if you went all-out you could get a seamstress or tailor to insert the 4 or 5 open top pockets you see on old conductor's jackets.

The nice thing about these jackets and their pants is that they are made of polyester, so they'll probably outlast all of us and keep looking crisp.