Southern Pacific Font

SD45T-2

Going back in time...
What is the font for the main lettering on the Hopper?

DSC01671.jpg
 
Yes, and none of them work.

But Arial Black works well for Cotton Belt, if you make it a little lower.
 
Well, it would take way too much work. For one, it's very modern and narrow. And Secondly, the S is incorrectly shaped.
 
Comic Sans?


joking aside, there are quite a few fonts that will be close to this (none of them are arial - you'd be better off going with my first suggestion). if you must use a font and not a drawn representation of the lettering - out of the fonts i have id pick Aharoni. True Blue, the Conrail font, can also work. those leave a little to be desired with the 'S' but other fonts can be used there. experiment with it. just dont use Arial for the love of trainz.
 
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Coming from the printing industry as a typesetter, I can say the font looks very much like Futura Bold.

http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.htm?productid=45090

and this here...

http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.htm?productid=45090

http://www.fonts.com/ <main site that maybe useful for other projects.


Monotype's Arial Bold is close, but the overall height isn't there to look the same, and Arial doesn't have that beautifully distinctive shape that the Futura font family has. The height difference in the lowercase letters is quite distinctive. Look at the sample I've provided in the 2nd link. SP didn't use lowercase in your photo, but instead used small caps, which are different. My old Varityper had a special command to generate small caps. They're a bit taller than half-height, so if you decide to recreate this logo, you have to watch that carefully where the characters line up against the large full-sized cap letters.

The biggest giveaway that this is Future is the cap C which ends short and square instead of rounding out like in Arial or even a close cousin Helvetica. The cap P too has a long bowel on it unlike Helvetica and Arial which are a lot more plain looking.

It came out during the late 1930s as one of the new "modern" style fonts. Many companies used this and it really is seeing a come back today.

John
 
Comic Sans?


joking aside, there are quite a few fonts that will be close to this (none of them are arial - you'd be better off going with my first suggestion). if you must use a font and not a drawn representation of the lettering - out of the fonts i have id pick Aharoni. True Blue, the Conrail font, can also work. those leave a little to be desired with the 'S' but other fonts can be used there. experiment with it. just dont use Arial for the love of trainz.

I love Arial.
 
John probably knows this better than I, but I find it very difficult to find fonts that match railroad fonts. Many railroads had their own fonts which are not really represented well with commonly available fonts. There is a website that sells different railroad fonts, but I can't remember the name of it off hand. If I can find it, I'll come back with a link. Experimenting helps a little, but I often find it necessary to 'paint' a font onto a texture and then modify it a little to get it as close to teh railroad font as I can. This can indeed become a little troublesome.

Mike

Here's the link that I was thinking of although their selection is limited in my opinion. http://www.railfonts.com/
 
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<snip> There is a website that sells different railroad fonts, but I can't remember the name of it off hand. If I can find it, I'll come back with a link. <snip>

Is it http://www.railfonts.com/? Check out his license terms for his fonts, though. Not sure if they would not be a little limiting on their usage for Trainz content.

There is another website with a few free railway fonts. I'll can try to get the URL and post it here.

Regards,

Zachary.
 
Yes, I know there are some license terms that can be limiting. I was only trying to point out that railroad fonts are rather unique and do not necessarily match any of the readily available fonts that we're used to. Anyone that is a stickler for fonts being absolutely prototypical could be severly disappointed in the availablity of suitable fonts. I think you'll see a lot of rolling stock with lettering that is not exactly prototypical, but is the closest that is generically available unless the creator has put in a lot of work developing their own series of font textures which can be quite a bit of work.

There is a site for some free railway fonts, but it is quite limited in the different available fonts.

Mike
 
Thanks guys for your help in this conquest.

I hate Arial, it's so bland. But I love the UP's lettering.
 
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