Best strategy for decaling undecorated cars for fantasy railroad?

I am haltingly working my way towards a fantasy short line that connects to B&O and/or Pennsy. I have some "data only" cars and some "undecorated" cars that I want to decal to the fantasy line. I know I need to get decals custom made for the fantasy railroad name, logo and reporting marks. For the data-only (or some road-name-and-reporting-marks-removed) cars, that is all I need to add to the cars. But, for the undecorated cars, I also need to obtain the proper data decals for each car. I am not sure of the best strategy for doing that. Should I just have those custom-made as well? They seem to be tiny print compared to what my standard word processor can make, so I am not even clear on how to make them. Or, would it be better to find ready-made decals from Microscale or Rail Graphics? Complication is that most of the decals will need to be in white ink, with some yellow for passenger cars.

 

I would say that you probably will find that you'll use a variety of methods to get the decals you want, including:
1. Find similar Microscale decals and use the dim-data from them. So, if you're decaling a boxcar, find a decal with graphics from a similar era with white dim-data and use it, leaving the reporting marks and logos out and replacing with the custom ones you have made. Especially useful if you can find decals on sale or as a large inexpensive lot on eBay.
2. Have the dim-data printed with your custom decals. I would imagine most decal makers have templates so that if you told them you wanted a "boxcar decal" they could take the dim-data from similar work they've done, put your logos, reporting marks, and number series in place and voila! You may find those adaptable to other types of cars, or you could do one run of boxcars, then next do tank cars, then hoppers, etc.
3. Print them yourself. This is handy but if you need white lettering it becomes problematic as most printers won't print white.

 

Keep in mind that even with the MS decals, the smaller data cannot be read (usually the printing makes them a blur), so I wouldn't worry about it (that) much. Depending on the color of your cars, you can buy laser decal sheets and print your own. For our clubs Sacramento Valley RR (was actually a real railroad until the SP came along) we have BCR cars with decals printed by printing brown on white sheets (cut as close to the brown as possible and try to use a brown that is close to the brown of the car) and express cars that are yellow/gold with black printed on clear decal sheets. BTW, do NOT use an inkjet printer for this. As soon as you put the decal into the water, the ink (which is usually water soluble) will wash away.

 

I'd been using Rail Graphics for years, but when I went to their website recently to restock it said only HO data sets are available now. So take that off the list...

 

Microscale has the data for both the regular capacity cars and the higher capacity cars as far as tonnage and dimensions. And if the cars and locos for the fantasy road use just initials like MS&L instead of a fully spelled out name you can get by with a couple of alphabet sets of decals cheaper, and rob some loco data from some decals you might already have. And the alphabet sets come in a variety of colors, fonts, and sizes.

 

I learned something from this post! I didn't know about the "later" dimensional data decals from Micro-Scale.

I have a supply of the 60-1 Railroad Roman Freight Car data, which I combine with New York, Ontario and Western lettering, 60- or 87-44 (both N and HO sizes). The "N.Y.O.&W." flips to "W.&N.Y." for my Wilmington & New York and it's the most cost-effective way I've found to get as many W's and Y's as I can on one decal sheet. My story is that the Wilmington purchased the rights to the NYO&Ws "Circle W" herald when the O&W went out of business in 1957, so I use the heralds as well.

 

The fantasy line will be all smallish steam (up to 2-8-0s and 4-6-0s), but the connecting line(s) may have some E and F unit diesels going by, along with some bigger steam (EM-1, maybe). More importantly, the time-frame is mid-1950s. But, this somewhat back-water fantasy short-line will have some older cars, including outside-braced box cars. Trying to avoid rebuild markings later than 1957.

 

Just counted 18 freight cars that need white data lettering, but there will be more. I am trying to figure out how important it is to find "data only" cars vs just getting undecorated cars and doing the data lettering along with everything else. Cost is an object, but so is availability of appropriate data decals. For instance, who has data for Atlas "fishbelly" 2-bay coal hoppers? How much would it cost to have custom-made data decals that say exact;y what I specify? Still trying to explore the options.

 

Trying to stay with short cars because I think they make better-looking trains on layouts with non-prototype curve radii. Freight cars are generally 40' or less, with some exceptions for gondolas (42' or 46'). Passenger cars for the short-line are under 70' (Wheels of Time Harrimans, up-graded Bachmann Shorties, and Roundhouse Overlands). I might put some 85' passenger cars behind some E units on the connecting railroad, if I can find the space for sweeping curves where it is not hidden for staging. The most non-main-stream frreight cars I need data for are 3 wood-clad ice reefers that are only 36' long. They are going to be owned or leased by the local brewery, and I might make them yellow or white and use balck data lettering for them.

 

You might check. Atlas has done "dimensional data only" schemes for some of their cars. (several color variations for the 90T hopper for example) I'm not sure if they've done them on the Fishbellies or not--or if you could even find them if so--but it might be worth looking into.

 

I have not tried this outfit yet, but hope to one day. They have a dry transfer decal printer rhat will do N size sets. I tried the dry transfer sets by Clover House and was immediately sold! No film edges to 'set' or worry about overly thick decals. Just position it, rub it on, and flat clear to keeo it there! Easy.

Anyway, if you can do any computer work, this might be a way to go...http://www.pulsarprofx.com/

The link wasn't working for me today, but I am out in SLOW NET neverland. So just get undec cars and decal up!

 

Another path: buying a decorated car with minimal lettering other than the dimensional data and then removing the lettering that you don't need. Atlas cars work particularly well for this-- a bit of Easy Lift-Off carefully applied and you're good to go. Here's an example I did which also betrays my preference in donuts:

 

I have a question that's somewhat related to this, in terms of doing it for fantasy purposes, but has anyone ever tried to remove the lettering from any Fox Valley rolling stock?

Is there a way to do it so as to remove the lettering buy keep the paint intact?

 

I haven't tried a Fox Valley Models car yet although I have one in queue (a B&O round roof boxcar).

I suspect, looking at the paint, that it might require some touching up after the lettering is removed.

 

OK, I used the link to read about that process. Then I tried to make text as small as the data printing on an N scale car. No joy on the size using Microsoft Word. Even the subscript setting for the smallest type size in Times New Roman is about twice the size needed. And, there is no "Railroad Roman" font that I saw.

So, any other ideas on how to get the font I need and the print size I need for making my own "data" transfers in N scale?

 

You may have to do an internet search for Railroad fonts. Used to be some out there somewhere. I can get down to about a five on my printer with Word but my experience is it doesn't transfer well to decal paper with a inkjet. May do better with a laserjet.