I am restoring an HO Rivarossi passenger car. The road name is Alton Limited. Has anyone seen the decals for Ho scalr Alton limited?
If you can’t find ready-made decals, you might try making your own. I suspect that the decals you desire are white (or light) lettering on a dark background. These can be made using white background decal paper. I have been using the Evan Designs decal paper to make white lettering decals with very good results. The trick is matching the background color of the loco or car to which you are applying the decal. This requires a bit of trial and error, and because it takes ink differently from regular typing paper, you must sacrifice at least the edge of a sheet of the decal paper to find the right color.
Using my favorite graphic design program, I start by creating a row of background squares along one edge of the page on the screen. I then change the color of the middle square to get it as close as I can to the background color of the piece of rolling stock or loco. Because the computer screen color will likely be different from the printed color on the decal paper, I then change each background color square to the left of center with progressively darker shades of my original background color estimate. I then change each background square to the right of center with progressively lighter shades of my original color. Make these progressive changes subtle as it is easy to find your actual color is somewhere between two of your trial squares. Once you think you have a good color range on your sample background squares, print them out on a sheet of decal paper. Use the print quality you desire for the final decal printing. Now compare the resulting color squares to the loco or car and choose the square that matches best. If none of the squares are quite right, decide which way on the color spectrum you should nudge the background colors and try again (just flip the decal paper to print the revised color squares on the opposite edge).
Got the right background color now? Good! Save it for future use
Thank you,
You method may be the way to go and thank you for details. My grand son has discoverd my trains. I built this layout 30+ years ago for his mother and uncle.
I am attaching a picture of an Alton Limited train set show the coloring and font. The background color is maroon and the lettering is gold. I have not been able to match the font. Extended Roman RR Lettering rub on lettering appears to close. None of the font on my computer (MS Office) are as long as the font on the car.
Jeff
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Good looking coach Jeff! I can see why you want to reproduce the Alton paint scheme. I use an older graphics program I found for making greeting cards, business cards, fliers and such. This program has a few “special effects” built in that can be used to stretch/compress lettering and/or objects to fit your needs. You might be able to find a similar type of program on the internet or at a computer store. Dry transfer lettering works but requires very careful layout to ensure the lettering remains straight and evenly spaced.