Ok, I have google searched and found a couple variations of what I am looking for. I was looking for the Reading Railroad logo and I found 2 kinds, Both are a diamond that sayas Reading Lines inside it but one is black, and the other is green and yellow, Which one did they use around the 1880’s??
I’m pretty sure it was neither in the 1880s. I have at home the definitive history of the Reading, a two-volume set published about 15 years ago, and it has illustrations of the logos. I’ll check it later, but I don’t believe that the diamond as we came to know it developed until the 1920s.
Try this http://www.readingrailroad.org/industries/rdg_coal.html
Half why down the page is a logo in the paragraph starting with “The Rush is on”. In the 1880’s Reading was known as The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company. Not until 1924 was in known as Reading Company.
A brief history…
http://www.readingrailroad.org/reading/rdg_history.html
I hope this is what you were looking for…
Neither. The diamond herald wasn’t real common until the late 1890’s, early 1900’s. It was a black diamond with contrasting writing that said “The Reading”. The “The” was smaller and above the “Reading” between the loop of the “R” and the top of the “d”. When it was on cars it had no border.
The “Reading Lines” was a product of the 30’s when government anti-trust litigation forced the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad to separate from the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Co. The herald then became “Reading Lines” with the word Lines under and to the right of “Reading”. The diamond could be black (most common), blue (passenger trains such as the Crusader and blue commuter cars) or green (mostly signs or later all green boxcars). The writing could be white, yellow, or gold (Black and white, blue and white, black and gold, green and yellow, or green and white).
During the 1880’s house cars (boxcars/reefers) had “Philadelphia and Reading” in an arch on the left end of the car, with “Fast Freight” in a line underneath it and then P&R and the number on the right side. House cars were generally a mineral brown or boxcar red color. Open top cars (flats, gons, hoppers) were black and just had the initials P&R on them.
Dave H.
Hey! Friendly suggestion…use something more descriptive in your subject line next time. Thanks…
I thought it was just writtten on boxcars like
READING in big black letters
Thanks everyone!!! You were so much help, nex time I will mention it in the poost title. So now that I have time I will explant why it was needed ASAP. I am Technical Theatre Major at my college here in Rock Springs, and we are doing “Annie Get Your Gun” and the set calls for a Reading Railroad sign, and the set designer wanted the logo on it, Knowing that I am the train nut that I am she asked me to dig up a logo that fit the 1880’s - 1890’s time frame so I could paint it on the sign. We decided to combine the diamond one and the other round one. If I get a chance I will try to take some pics of it when I am done with it in the next few days to show y’all how it came out!!!