Arched Lettering For Roadnames

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Please help me out here.

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Aside from the NORTHERN PACIFIC and the GULF, MOBILE, & OHIO, were there any other prominent railoroads in the transition era that had boxcars lettered with their roadname in an arched pattern?

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The reason I am asking is because in the “Fantasy Fleet” I am creating, I already have three railroads with arched lettering. I do not want this to become too common to look silly, but I love the way this style of lettering looks.

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Thanks for all input, help, and advice.

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-Kevin

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+1

9310 001 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr

9497 001 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr

I’ll add any more I can think of…

Cheers, Ed

3

It was a fairly common design. The P&R had arched lettering and numerous lines had “FAST FREIGHT” arched on the sides of the car.

4

I just looked through my copy of Champ’s “Freight Car Lettering Plan Book”. I found NP, GM&O and Sacramento Northern in the box car section.

In reefers, I found GB&W. I found Virginian arched on a caboose, but straight on a box car.

80 pages. 8 drawings per page. Some cars, of course, aren’t too suitable for arched roadnames–flat cars at the top of the list.

Ed

5

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Ed: Thank you for looking into this. Your help is truly appreciated.

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It sounds like I should not go with more than 3 or 4 roadnames in my fleet with arched lettering. Maybe I will go to five.

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-Kevin

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6

Boston and Maine Minuteman scheme herald.

B&O had “Linking 13 Great States” around their capitol dome herald for a time.

WM Fireball herald

What I typed above is probably not exactly what you were looking for now that I re-read the other resonses.

7

Perhaps not what you are thinking about – that is, not like the big arch that the Northern Pacific used for years – but Southern Pacific Lines and Great Northern both used circular heralds at various times that called for lettering to be in arch shapes.

Dave Nelson

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That style of lettering was at it’s most popular in roughly 1870-1900. Not only railroad names, I’ve seen photos of cabooses from that time with “caboose” lettered in an arch.

A few railroads continued doing it into the mid-20th century, but only a few.

9

Another was the TEMISKAMING & NORTHERN ONTARIO RAILWAY, which utilised an arch for TEMISKAMING, with the ampersand below that, then NORTHERN ONTARIO on one line, and in a mirror image of the first arch, RAILWAY. This road later became the Ontario Northland, to resolve the conflict of reporting marks with the Texas & New Orleans.

Others which I found in my C-D-S catalogue of lettering include the SPOKANE PORTLAND & SEATTLE and the RIO GRANDE SOUTHERN, the latter at least on their tenders, and, as Stix mentions, their cabooses, too.

The Great Northern Railway of Canada put the first two words in an arch, and the first three words in the French version, on the other side of the car (which translate as “Railroad”).

The Denver South Park & Pacific RR put the DSP&PRR in an arch, along with the word TIFFANY on the other side of the door, on their reefers and the catalogue also shows a similar DSP&P car with UNION PACIFIC in an arch on one side of the door, and an arched REFRIGERATOR on the other side.

The Denver & Rio Grande used all sorts of arches on ventilated boxcars and reefers, and it included the DR&G, along with the spelled-out name, the car type, and even some route slogans and the types of products carried in such cars.

The Jersey Central Lines put the JERSEY CENTRAL portion of the name in an arch in their Miss Liberty herald.

Canadian Pacific had the roadname on their cabooses, and double-sheathed boxcars, and ventilated boxcars in an arch in the early 1900s, as did Canadian Northern.

That’s about all I could find in that catalogue, and most were for older cars and/or narrow gauge roads.

Wayne

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Thanks to everyone that took the time to answer.

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I am going to stick with just the few roadnames I have with the arched lettering. It sounds like the mix is right for my era.

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-Kevin

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