Railroad Fonts

These fonts are original creations, either created soley by me or in partnership with someone else. They are available for use under the MIT License.

The purpose of these fonts is for lettering and numbering of railroad equipment, whether prototype or scale model. They are not intended for general writing.

To install in Microsoft Windows, download the TrueType/OpenType .ttf version and copy to your C:\Windows\Fonts folder.

Great Northern Empire Builder

Used with the Omaha Orange and Pullman Green colors, the Empire Builder lettering sans-serif typeface was used on locomotives (starting with the E7) and passenger cars. Jon Snyder has done extensive research and published his findings for us. There were several variants used, which the individual font files below attempt to capture.

General notes:

Only letters, numbers and punctuation actually applied to GN equipment have glyphs. We did not extrapolate to every character in Latin-based languages.
While there is no distinct upper and lower case, the shift key may provide an alternate shape.
The space between characters is generally equal to the height of a character.
The space character's width is equal to the height of a character. In addition, there are four partial-width spaces: Shift-1 is 1/8, Shift-2 is 1/4, Shift-3 is 3/8 and Shift-4 is 1/2.
Characters have some variable amount of leading space. This is to mimic kerning in applications which do not support it. (Kerning is adjusting the space between characters to 'look right').
Shift-period has negative leading space so that the period nestles up against the preceeding character. For example, 'C. B. & Q.' at each end of the letterboard.
The image with each font shows a preview of the glyphs in the font.

Square Version

The artwork for this font was created by Jon Snyder, based on his research into the Great Northern 'Empire Builder' lettering applied to passenger cars - especially by Pullman. To date we have not found original GN or Pullman blueprints to trace. It is called 'square' because most letters are as wide as they are tall.

	Empire Builder Square - CB&Q / GN Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit GN and CB&Q practice. Lower-case 'D' is the ligature in COEUR d'ALENE LAKE. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0	C.B.&Q. EMPIRE BUILDER GREAT NORTHERN 1143 couer dalene lake
	Empire Builder Square - SP&S Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit SP&S practice on the 1951 cars. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0	S.P.&S. RY. CO. EMPIRE BUILDER 701 wapinitia pass
	Empire Builder Square - SP&S Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit SP&S practice on the 1947 cars. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0	S.P.&S. RY. CO. EMPIRE BUILDER 600 mount hood

Extended Version

This font is traced from GN blueprints 44066 (numerals) and 44080 (car names, lettering and spacing). It is called 'Extended' because most letters are wider than they are tall.

	Empire Builder Extended - CB&Q / GN Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit GN and CB&Q practice. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0	C.B.&Q. EMPIRE BUILDER GREAT NORTHERN 1291 st nicholas mountain
	Empire Builder Extended - SP&S Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit SP&S practice on the 1951 cars. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0	S.P.&S. RY. CO. EMPIRE BUILDER 1332
	Empire Builder Extended - SP&S Version: Upper-case 'L' has the square corner used in 'EMPIRE BUILDER' in the letterboard. The ampersand and period fit SP&S practice on the 1947 cars. TrueType/OpenType Web Open Font Format 1.0 Web Open Font Format 2.0