Hi, Whats the fonts type of "Northern Pacific Railway" please ? If anyone send me the Windows Font file... Best regards.
Unfortunately, unless someone has uploaded this specific lettering, there is no specific font. Their lettering was all done via engineering drawings. You might try the NPRHA web site. Perhaps there is something in their files. www.nprha.org Boxcab E50
If you are not too picky, some fonts are close enough to railroad lettering styles to make good stand-ins. Technically speaking a "font" is a lettering style/size used by printers. With the computer age, various fonts were digitally recreated to use in word processing. As Ken says, the railroads generated their own unique engineering drawings and did not use printer's fonts. Many folks started using the term to refer to railroad lettering styles and usually everyone knows what they are talking about. However there are many purists out there who get all bent out of shape when they hear them use the term in this manner. There is one guy on the Espee Yahoo group who really goes ballistic.
I think Pray59 here may have the font file.... You can get it over the net, but I haven't seen a freeware file, all I saw are about 20 bucks. mg:
Ok, thanks for these answers. I already sought on the website of NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION but without result. There are however firms as Microscale which produce decals with the fonts of railway company ! Even if it is a similar font, can you makes the deal ? I will contact Pray59. Thank you again... PS: excuse my poor english... i hope it's easy to understand :embarassed:
Not all of those decals use "fonts". Much of the lettering on many of those decal sets either used commercial fonts that were modified in a vector graphics program (like adding/deleting serifs, changing letter strokes, etc.), or else totally drawn from scratch. That was usually done from photos, or from those previously mentioned lettering drawings from the RR's (or car/locomotive builder). Not always an easy task - drawing some letters (like "S") could be a pain!:realmad1up: For newer subjects from the 90s onward, computer fonts became more prevalent, and many commercially available fonts were also used by the railroads and builders - various "Switzerland" and "Arial" fonts are pretty popular for things like car data and warning labels these days. For the older stuff though, unless you find a font someone created that approximates what you want, unfortuantely, you're on your own.:unsure8ao:
I bought the NP font from RailFonts.com, and found I had to modify some of the letters a bit. I never bothered to make them into a new font, as I use Corel Draw to make my decals, so what I did was to type out all the letters I needed to use, then converted them to curves. Once the letters and numbers were converted to curves, I had to manually stretch out stuff like the thin part of the letter N, number 1, etc, so that they would print correctly on my Alps printer. After I had all the letters and numbers done, I could arrange them as needed for decals sets, then shrink or grow them as needed. The NP font as sold on RailFonts is pretty much good enough for N Scale and larger, but I do Z Scale so that's why I needed to modify mine. It was only $10, so price is not too bad, depending on how much use you get out of them. At first I had planned on buying the whole package...until I saw the price, so I only bought what I need. What I discovered later is that I can use similar fonts from the Corel CD's, and convert them to curves, then stretch them out over photo's of prototype lettering that I import into Corel, and build the decals I need that way, just about as fast as buying the font I need, and all the art will be scaleable into any size I need later down the road. I can legally share my own artwork, so if you have Corel Draw I will share my drawings. I don't make a living off my artwork, just for hobby use so I am willing to share.
wow, thanks for all informations. For the moment, i use Adobe Photoshop CS, and make decals for ON30 layout, example : - black text - white text - White signs and tags for the fun : here. I've the possibility to use Corel Draw, so, if it's possible to share me your work, i will be happy !
