My next big project will be modifying/painting a MTH caboose and 2-8-0 for the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line RR. The original 1898 proprietary railroads connected to them were:
Atlantic Coast Line
Atlantic & Danville
Chesapeake & Ohio
New York, Philadelphia & Norfolk
Norfolk & Southern
Norfolk & Western
Seaboard Air Line
Southern
Pretty impressive list of RRs.
Much of their equipment came from these proprietary RRs, especially PRR and N&W. The caboose and engine I have in mind both came from PRR and through the assistance of some fellow forumites I managed to acquire what I need to begin this project.
Here's the problem, no decals that I can find are available and not a lot of information on the actual RR either. I do have a book authored by W. Hugh Moomaw "Virginia's Belt Line Railroad: The Norfolk & Portsmouth, 1898-1997". A few of the photos in his book show the old herald NPBL used on their steamers and cabooses:
Searching the internet provided nothing more, but it's very close to what the Texas & Pacific used:
I was able to modify this in Adobe Photo Deluxe Home Edition 3, but the saved image didn't come out as good as it did when I was working on it so I need to try again:
The main problem is figuring out how to do the BELT LINE in the center of the diamond. The word BELT goes from small to large and the word LINE goes from large to small. I'm no artist or typographer and have no idea what to look (or what to call it) for in the way of a font program to get in order to duplicate this style.
So, any ideas on how to get lettering that looks like this?
Here's some additional info:
The summer 1998 issue of Locomotive Quarterly has a feature on their steam engines, up through 1954
If someone has this copy could you please look to see if there's any good images of this logo?