Train Car Lettering

Robare M. Novou · Post by **Robare M. Novou** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 5:55 pm

Does anyone on this site have any information or leads to information concerning train lettering? To be more specific, Railroad trains from around the turn of the century (1800-1900).

RMN

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:43 pm

Robare,
I don't recall owning a book specifically dedicated to train car lettering, but there are references in the ICS books.

This plate was lettered in 1893 and copyrighted in a folio collection of other ICS oversized plates in 1899. I had to splice this image since the plates are bigger than my scan area. This is darned close to most rail road car lettering I've seen personally.

The text begins with this sentence:

This style of letter, as its name implies, is designed to fill spaces such as the frieze and dado of railroad coaches, that are too long in proportion to their height to admit of the use of any other style.

I digitized that alphabet for my own use a long time ago, as shown above.

I think Dover sells a book or streetcar and trolly car images. Seems like there might be something similar for trains. Gary Godby posted a link on the old BB which takes you to a bunch of historical photos listed by specific subjects. You might look through them for more images.

Hope this helps,

Roger R. · Post by **Roger R.** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:39 pm

Robare
I was shown by Southern Railway shop how they made
metal stencils. If this information is of any use, I can
explain.

Roger

Roderick Treece · Post by **Roderick Treece** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:47 pm

Train Cars,Now theres a beutiful backgroud to paint on.
The fist time I saw a train being hand painted I was at Knott's Berry Farm with my six grade class and we saw this guy lettering the locamotive in ghost town.I you can imagin how proud i was when it turn out to be my dad.
Later we lettered a train for the Walnut Creek Train Station Restaurant (Calif) .If you go to the web site www.ghosttownsigns.com I have pictures of that train.It shows some very nice lettering and scrolls.Hope that helps and let me know if you need any more info.
Any body that gets to paint a train is truly fortunate.I'm glad I did and will alway feel grateful for the oportunity

Roderick

Rick Sacks · Post by **Rick Sacks** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 8:14 am

Just what is it that you want to know? I have a train customer. Everything from steam engines, coaches and gondolas, depot signs, and the round house. Jim Ingram does most of the work for the railroad museum in Sacramento. They might be a connection for what you want.

Robare M. Novou · Post by **Robare M. Novou** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:18 pm

Im looking for information on the passenger train cars. Not the frieght cars or Engines, just the passenger compartment cars.

RMN

John Studden · Post by **John Studden** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:41 pm

Robare,
If is helpful, the Typestyle shown on this page is available from Letterhead Fonts, it is named Pullman Train.
John

Post by **Mike Jackson** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:41 pm

Here's a more complete showing of John's font at:
http://www.letterheadfonts.com/

Carol · Post by **Carol** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:48 am

I googled Pullman car lettering and found this book:
Pullman Paint and Lettering Notebook, ISBN 0890242917. It might be for model train buffs, but I think those people are pretty accurate. Hope it helps.
C.