Some of you may know the IRM is in the process of restoring Chicago Rapid Transit 1024, Pullman 1898, an old wood L car to its original Northwest Elevated RR car No. 24 paint.
Tim has most of the exterior done and has asked me to come up with the lettering. We have a few pictures from CHICAGO RAPID TRANSIT Vol. 1. Car 24 appears on page 36 and is copied below.
My problem is the half-tone and size of the print is too poor to trace the font.
Before I try and locate the published photo I wondered if anyone out there knows where we might acquire a sharp 8 x 10 print of any NW L car like the one below.
Thanks, Buzz.

I don't know if this will help, a typical 3/4 shot:

http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... NWERR9.jpg

This is a side view but very dim:

http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... er1034.jpg

This is a freight unit, clear but I am not sure it is the same font:

http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... S-105a.jpg

How does this car compare to the one preserved in the Chicago history museum?

Well, they are from different predecessor companies, and built by different builders...

SSRT 1 is actually older, built by Jackson & Sharp in 1892 as a trailer for the South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, which was steam powered at the time.

CRT 1024 at IRM was built by Pullman in 1898 for the Northwestern Elevated Railroad as car 24. It was built as a motor car in pre-MU days when the Northwestern was a motor-trailer operation.

Both cars were upgraded over the years to MU control. As I recall, the 1024 still retains it's rather large cabs, which were on the left side behind that large "picture window."

Both cars are the same size and similar architecture; SSRT 1 has panel and batten sides, while CRT 1024 is car siding. The seating arrangement in SSRT 1 is a mix of longitudinal seats at the ends, and cross seating mid-car. CRT 1024 is a "bowling alley" with longitudinal seats the length of the car. Great for packing in lots of standees, but not very comfortable seating.

I can't say offhand if the two ever ran together in a train; after the five original "L" companies were consolidated into the Chicago Rapid Transit, the cars were used system wide, but similar cars tended to stay on the same line for maintenance reasons.

It's nice to see one of the "L" cars going back to represent the early days; IRM has several slightly newer wood cars restored to represent the CRT years, and one that had the interior modernized by the Chicago Transit Authority in the fifties to put an end point on their story,

For more info on the operation and it's cars, I suggest you poke around on this web site: http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/

Not being an electric traction person I am just now finding out the details of the different elevated companies that preceded Chicago Rapid Transit.
Interesting to note that North West Elevated seen here
http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... NWERR9.jpg

And Metropolitan Elevated seen here
http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... ERR842.jpg
Both seem to have the same letter-board font, although separate companies.

Early wood cars lettered Rapid Transit also had a very similar font.
http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery ... rt1708.jpg

Later versions of Rapid Transit were a simplified bolder style decal as we photographed on 1268 after scraping back a few layers of paint.

Buzz,

Some images pulled off Flickr, which might be useful:

Car #110: https://flic.kr/p/ou2kc5

Car #265: https://flic.kr/p/osoyfG

Car #265, close-up detail on the "265": https://flic.kr/p/ouoLjW

Car #700: https://flic.kr/p/ocWv15