Fonts

[nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org]

The short answer is there is no exact present day font match.

N&W lettering, steam, diesel, passenger and freight car were originally 
hand drawn by motive power draftsmen at Roanoke. In the days when the 
lettering was developed (some going back to before the turn of the 20th 
Century), there was no such thing as a personal computer with myriad 
fonts, headline letters was all hand drawn. Depending on the budget and 
need for speed, type was sometimes set with letterpress type and 
occasionally, some form of early photo typesetting.

I am a graphic designer by trade and training. When i was in college in 
the mid 1970s, one of the first classes we were required to  take was 
lettering. We were taught how to hand letter headlines, learned type 
design, letter space, positive and negative space, as well as the rules 
of font design. It was just over another decade before there would be a 
variety of fonts on the personal computer and a way to get high quality 
work from them.

For consistency sake, a standard drawing was made of the 10 inch 
letters ''NORFOLK AND WESTERN'' as applied to most diesel locomotives. 
These drawings were provided to paint shops, or stencils were custom 
cut and supplied to the paint shops. Many stencils came from the 
Demp-Knock Company of Michigan, precut and packaged for the railroad as 
single use stencils. One set I have is still sealed in the package for 
Norfolk and Western passenger car lettering. The large heralds were 
also cut by the same company and provided in stencil form until the 
heralds were made of Scotchlite reflective material, and the background 
color was silk screen printed on the gold scotchlite.

Far more than you wanted to know, I am sure.

Ken Miller
On Apr 27, 2006, at 10:49 AM, nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org wrote:


> Can someone in this group tell me which fonts are used

> by N&W on the diesels, i.e. SD-45 1728?

> TIA

> J. McCutcheon

>

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