Fonts for Santa Fe Slogan

I don't know.  I've looked myself - through several hundred printer font sets and can't find a set that has the type of a and y in the lower three words all the way (which are italics) - The Santa Fe above is not in the same font (note the different shape of the letter a).  Not sure what font that is, either. 

If I were making decals (and I probably will) I think I'd start by photographing the words from the side of a slogan car, etc. and then playing with that image some to print it on decal paper.

Thanks for the info. If you have looked through several hundred fonts without any luck, then it is probably going to be hard to find the fonts.

Your idea for taking a photo sounds like a good idea for recreating the Santa Fe slogan, but I was thinking more along the lines of creating a different slogan with a similar look. I'm not trying to exactly duplicate the slogan,  but I was hoping to find a font that is pretty close.

If you have  photo for reference I'll get you as close as can be had with available digital fonts. Most likely the prototype was a hand lettered design, but back in those days, commercial artists had some real typography skills. But there is quite a bit out there that mimics those styles.

Tim

Another avenue to try is to contact the people behind RailFonts.com.  They obviously have an interest in both railroads and fonts, so they may know a little bit more (and who knows, maybe they are working on adding that particular font to their catalog).

Andy

You might look at "Extended Railroad Roman". 

Thanks for the additional replies.

Timothy: Here is an example of the "ship Santa Fe all the way" slogan from the Lionel website for their Kansas City Chief Map Boxcar:

Here is an example of "Santa Fe" using Bernard MT Condensed font. It gets in the ballpark.

I haven't found a font close to the "ship" and "all the way" words.

Andy: I don't see anything on the railfonts site that looks similar. Almost all of their fonts are capital letters with the lower case letters just being smaller capital letters. I guess an email couldn't hurt to see what they might have in the works.

marker: could you provide more info such as a source? Railfonts has a SP extended railroad roman font, but it is all caps.

Thanks.

9 inch Roman for reporting marks (ATSF).  7 inch Roman numbers on side.  4 inch Roman reporting marks and numbers on ends.  4 inch and 3 inch Roman  class symbols.  3 inch Roman weight data.  2 inch Roman dimensional and mechanical data.  Before 1947, there were two sizes and styles of slogans...one for forty foot cars and the other for fifty.  Microscale made decals for most of the slogan boxcars.  Not sure, but think that the stencils were shop made.

Info from Santa Fe Railway Painting and Lettering Guide. Vol 1., which, unfortunately,  gives no guidance for the stencil style.

Allan

Thank you for the additional info.

marker: could you provide more info such as a source? Railfonts has a SP extended railroad roman font, but it is all caps.

Sorry I tried to find a source and couldn't.  I also tried to come up with more accurate info but I can't get to some of my books that might have it.  I did find my copy of "Refrigerator Cars" published by the Santa Fe Modelers Organization.  atsfrr.com   

The only font referred to was Roman in different sizes, with the exception of Gothic for some data, as Allan E has already posted. 

Marker, thanks for looking.

It sounds like the slogan was made with a stencil, and there aren't any fonts that replicate the "type face" used by the Santa Fe (learned a new word after doing some research).

Thanks to everyone for your assistance in trying to find a solution.

I might pick up the Railroad Roman font from  railfonts  for use on smaller letters and numbers.

I don't believe you'll find a font that matches without a lot of manipulation.

Just a bit of trivia. 

in the days of metal type and iron men, The term "Font" originally referred to the set of uppercase and lowercase letters, figures, punctuation and "dingbats"supplied in a single given point size. in digital type, font is synonymous with typeface.  

One last suggestion.  You might join the Yahoo ATSF group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATSF/

If you don't find the answer or get an explanation there, you won't get one.  The group includes Santa Fe enthusiasts that have written the reference books everyone uses, some of the best Santa Fe modelers in the country, etc.   

Thanks, I'll give them a try.

Yup, that's based on hand drawn lettering. though even those artists used set typography as a source. I have those letters somewhere between the Garamond and Baskerville families. See the sample below. I also listed the settings to get the exaggerated condence and elongated caps.  I'd also run it through a filter to roughen it a bit. For the sans serif, "all the way" that's really freelanced, kind of between a serif and sans serif. There are a few type design houses that design and sell fonts much like these samples as the antique poster look is in style for marketers these days. You could do a search and see if someone has a free trial of something you like.

Tim

Timothy, thanks for the info. I have pretty limited knowledge about fonts and type faces, but I'm slowly learning. I just have the basic Garamond and Baskerville fonts. I also don't have any of the more expensive graphics programs. I have an ancient version of Adobe Indesign (1.5) where I was able to play around with the horizontal and vertical scales like in your examples. I looked around for type design houses and found a site that listed a number of what they refer to as "foundries". I bookmarked it for future use as I don't have the time at present to search through font libraries, but may try it in the future.