What do you think of this as a logo concept for my South Pennsylvania Railroad?
(Circa 1950’s - 1960’s)
John
<=SP=> (stand-alone) might look a bit less busy.
John:
Very nice looking, but out here in the Wild West, it might look to a lot of us as a kinda/sorta variation on the Southern Pacific “Black Widow” scheme, except of course you’re using a gold ‘wing’ instead of orange stripes.
I’m assuming that given your railroad’s time line, that will be on some F-units? What color are you planning for your locomotives?
Maybe if you used Roman Lettering for the “SP” instead of the plainer lettering.
Just my thoughts.
Tom [:)]
Reminds me of the Southern Pacific, as well.
Lose the “RR”, and try some interlocking ideas with the SP. That could work.[2c]
I haven’t picked an exact color scheme, but I was thinking of perhaps “borrowing” another RR’s scheme, if I found one I liked, and just re-lettering and putting new logos on them. The steamers will just get “S.P.R.R” lettering. Also I don’t disagree with your thoughts about the lettering either. This was just a quickie I banged-out in about 3 minutes to illustrate the concept. The Roman font would be a good choice. A lot of RR’s used it.
One thought I had was to use a pennsy keystone, but in doodling that out it kept looking too contrived and PRR-ish. And while the South Pennsylvania RR and the Pennsylvania RR are going to be intertwined on the layout, I want the South Penn RR to have its own history and heritage. The PRR is going to be its largest stock-holder, or perhaps the SPRR is a recent acquisition of the PRR, something along those lines-- where there is close operational cooperation but not yet complete integration.
John:
I wouldn’t discard the “Keystone”–Pennsylvania is historically known as the “Keystone” state because of its importance to the original 13 Colonies. That’s possibly the reason that the Pennsy adapted the “Keystone” as its symbol.
You might want to see if you can adapt the “Keystone” to the South Pennsylvania RR because of it’s historical importance to the area.
For instance, the large, sprawling Southern California railroad Pacific Electric out here in California adapted the ‘Sunset’ Logo of the Southern Pacific to its own ends, as did the Northwestern Pacific in the northern part of the state. At that time, Southern Pacific was the most important railroad in the entire state, so adapting the “Keystone” as you logo wouldn’t put you too far off having a railroad that is connected with the giant Pennsylvania.
Just a thought.
Tom [:)]
OK, that makes sense. I’ll admit when I saw SPRR, the history node kicked in and thought SPQR.
SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The Senate and the People of Rome” or “The Senate and Roman People”
I looked around to see if there was anything that may be useful, with the simple change of SPQR to SPRR.
I found this: (2 keystones, when all above letter block is removed). Google SPQR images for more.
That is definitely along the right lines-- too much for a livery, but probably right in line with a stock certificate, or “official” company documents.
Just use the shape surrounding the letters for the logo, remove the rest.
The entire design for everything else.
Another popular symbol here in Pa. is the Liberty Bell, of course that’s more for a SE Pa thing. A prominant geographical feature is the Mason Dixon line (that’s why Maryland is the Old Line State, I believe) but that’s a little difficult to work into a logo
In general, I like the winged logo - it would look great on the front of any of the cab units, except maybe a shark.
I think the Long Island RR used a keystone in it’s logo with the LIRR interlocked
Bill has a good idea, right up until you actually go about planitng it on an F unit. I’m just not sure the keystone shapes will look good ont eh curve. You could do it smaller, but I’m not sure if that works well for what you wanted. The SP logo at top, is a big, presentive logo.
For myself, the logo, color, and loco painting took turns helping each other. Half-Moon’s logo started as the SP sun, but I took a chunk out of the front to make the cresent, and redid the stripes, so the silver center stripe is a lunar ray on the night sky blue, top and bottom stripe. The locos, and business cars all matched the logo, and the logo changed to reflect the colroschmes. It might help you if you find something in a scheme to run with.
Originally, the moon was to be grey and the stripe the cream color. But in doing the engines, the cream looked like a better choce for the nose, so I flipped them. Today, a slug unit is running around my paint booth mess in the silver nose scheme, and the Skytop Lounge business car is in the cream cresent. And at this point, they may become the only HO&N equipment to get into a scheme, as I’m debating a layout change. Though I may do the business train anyway, cause I can. If I do, the skytop will have the front of the logo, and each car as well as the main body of the Skytop will be a navy blue with a silver stripe along the windows. The last car may also be a blunt ended obs, in which I’ll cut the silver stripe short and at a downward angle, and do a short section of the blunt end in the cream, just to restart the pattern, but I haven’t decided just yet.
One other thing, avoid the white lettering if you can in the log itself.
Well, he is the South Penn RR, and a Bell curve does lend itself well to an F unit. How do you feel about a copper/glod and green?
It wouldn’t be if he crossed the Masy Dixy, say South Penn and Maryland RR, but as it is, the Line wouldn’t make much sense.
I have to admit that my first thought was - Junior Birdman! Looks like the tin wings I got for an Ovaltine(?) jar seal back when Captain Midnight was a radio drama hero.
Since SP immediately translates to Southern Pacific for most modelers and railfans, you might think about changing it to S/P. Adopting the keystone as part of your herald would also distance you from Sacramento.
IIRC, there was a prototype South Penn railroad, which was converted to the Penn Turnpike after the tracks were lifted. I wonder what that herald looked like.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Junior Birdman… snort, that’s amusing! 
I admit the keystone logos I tried were with a different wing shape concept. I’ll give it another whirl with these and see if it looks any better.
I’m not married to a color scheme yet, though as a default choice I guess I’m sort of leaning toward something that has yellow in it, but would happily chuck it out the window if something I liked better comes along.
The South Penn is not going to be a “wealthy” railroad, but not poor either. Hauling tonnage and getting by-- you know, paying the bills but nobody’s getting rich. It values its close ties with the Pennsy, fully cooperative wherever possible, doesn’t mind leasing power, granting trackage rights and all that, but it is its own railroad albeit heavily influenced through its Pennsy patronage. And the Pennsy is its major (though not only) interchange partner at both ends.
As far as colors go, I wouldn’t mind finding a scheme that was more colorful, though I don’t want overly “bright” or “garish”. Something that might stand out a little from the Pennsylvania hills. Steam is going to be black though-- normal “steam” colors.
I like Allen McClelland’s idea of the “blue dip” paint scheme, though I don’t want to copy his scheme exactly. But the whole idea of corporate "exp
A quick google shows that “the Old Line” most likely was a honorary nickname coined by George Washington to describe some of the reliable Maryland infantry from the Revolutionary War/War of Independence. Line as in “a regiment of the line”, eh?
See http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/nickname.html
And no - it has nothing whatsoever to do with picking a logo for the South Penn RR
Smile,
Stein
Tom,
Here’s a modified version using a keystone:
Is this better?
Oh I don’t know… seems to me it might have a certain appeal…
[(-D]
LOL
Grin,
Stein
It was never built. A few sections were graded, a bridge built, and a small bit of track, but it was never anywhere near completion. JP Morgan (the man, not the current company) stepped in and got the NYC and PRR to agree to halt the silly building in each other’s back yards and the SP right of way ended up laying dormant for many years. Since the route had been surveyed by railroad people, complete with the usual avoidance of steep grades, it was a natural much later when they went to build the turnpike.
–Randy