Can anyone tell me the type of font that The Pennsylvania RR used on their steam loco tenders? I believe at some time it was also used on their electrics and diesels as well, but I am mainly interested in the type of font that is mainly seen at the RRMPA on their steam loco tenders.

Try copperplaite gothic. The font for the numerals is unique as far as I know.

I seem to remember from somewhere that CLAREMONT was a font used such as on some GG1's

Most railroads had several uses of 'standard' lettering schemes (over time), so if you can post a link to a photo of what you want it might help winnow out the several correct answers that likely exist for one point in history or another.

Bob Kutella

Try:

http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasoni ... l#pennromn

and the bottom of

http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/prr3.html

Depending on whom you talk to, you're looking for PRR's custom-made Penn Roman, Railroad Roman, or Claw Clarendon; no matter what you use, there's going to be someone who will nit-pick at least one letter of your typeface.

And just for kicks and giggles, as my one friend says.....

http://prr.railfan.net/makesign.html

to make your own PRR station sign!

PRR lettering was no printer's font, it was individual letter and number drawings issued by the Engineering Department. SPF's generally agree that the closest printer's font is Craw Clarendon, although it is not an exact match. From 1938 to 1941 PRR abandoned this form of lettering and went to a Futura-style sans serif lettering.

Here is another link:

http://kc.pennsyrr.com/art/index.html

I used a combination of this one (for the numbers) and Benn Coifman's lettering to do the following car, fresh out of the WSOR Horicon paint shop:


Benn Coifman's fonts may be found here:

http://www.railfonts.com/

Steve Zuiderveen

Steve,

Brother Mitchell hit the nail on the head about the nit-picking. And unless you have drawings of the PRR letttering that is correct for the year and car type you are trying to letter, you are in for some real research fun.

My suggestion would be to get one of the PRR steam engine books, photocopy a tender you like, and blow it up. Then find a good stencil maker and see what he or she can do for you.

A good font or typeface (the terms are interchangeable, despite what some will say) to start with is Times Roman (pointy serif) and Craw Clarendon (slab serif). You might also want to try a stencil font called “Steamer” and fill in the little stencil tabs.

My stencil maker is a trained artist and was schooled in the art of letter drawing. He now uses a computor for his stencils, because he is tired of hand drawing letters (which he did for 30 years). However, he did hand draw some stencils for my ore jenny restoration.

You can see more about my ore jenny stencilling at the link below:

http://www.prrllc.com/projects_g38b_Stencil.html

All in all, PRR lettering is a challenge, and as indicated above, someone from the PRR community will inevitably find a flaw.

Scott
www.prrllc.com

Scott -

I looked over your website and the Pennsy Keystone herald that you applied to your PRR ore-jenny. Wow...I didn't realize the complexity of making that stencil! We've got a Penn Central boxcar at our museum which I want to paint back into its original PRR paint scheme. These X50b's had the large Keystone herald "with shadow". This looks like it's going to be a bigger problem than I had figured. Hmmmm.....just painting it back to Penn Central is starting to look a bit more attractive!

Les

....nitpick....NITPICK?.....Railfans do that??

I am in shock!

I expect a lot of info and perhaps copies of the drawings may be available from the State Archives in Harrisburg. But you may need the help of an on site 'insider' to navigate through the very large collections. And I would not dismiss the aid and assistance of the PRR Historical groups.

Bob Kutella

Which raises a question. I have tried to download several of the standard sign diagrams from two of the PRR websites. These are in "pdf" format, to be opened with Adobe. Problem is, after downloading them, they will not open. Has the reader program changed, and if so, how can I find a way to open these plans? Any suggestions?