Milw Rd EP-2 Hiawatha help

[u18b]

Hi folks,

I need a side-on photo of a Milw Rd EP-2 in the hiawatha cigar scheme.

I'm creating my own font- and want it to be as accurate as possible.
I have searched the internet and all my books and all I can find of this loco are the artsy 1/4 and 1/2 angle shots.

I have already created a font for the Railroad Fair scheme, but Milw Rd seems to have made the font less elongated when they went to the cigar scheme.

Any side-on photos or scans would be helpful-- on the prototype.

For example I have Milw Road Bi-polar Electrics; Classic Power 2 and there is a drawing in there-- but I don't think the font is accurate.

Any help would be appreciated.

Here is the loco in question:

[Missaberoad]

Looking through my (admittedly limited) library turned up nothing.

Best photo I could find online is this one.
http://www.american-rails.com/images/MILW_MS_BiPolars.jpg

Judging from that photo it looks like the same font that was applied to the Westinghouse electrics, Little Joe E20 and a few boxcabs.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/milw/milw-E30dsa.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/milw/milw-E57Bdsa.jpg (this one is off but I think that's due to the restoration)

Steam style Graphics makes decals of this lettering in HO & N scale.

http://streamstylegraphics.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=164
http://streamstylegraphics.com/shop/image/cache/data/IMG_Models/DSC04716Large-800x600.JPG

[Missaberoad]

Just noticed they also make a set specific to the Bi-polar.

http://streamstylegraphics.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=35_38_41&product_id=60

Looking at the Erie built thread he may be out of business however...  I sent him an inquiry to confirm.

[u18b]

The problems with Streamstyle are:

Todd does not appear to be in business anymore with printing decals-- based on others contacts who have tried to talk to him.
This is awful since his website is still up and thus will take money.  At any rate, there are a lot of people out there that his site took money from and they are still waiting on decals.

But be that as it may, his decals are not perfect.   I had to re-design the font for the 1948/1949 Railroad Fair locomotive.  His decal is OK for E1,2,4,5.  But if you want to do the "6-stripe" number E-3, they are wrong.

I have two sets of his right now for the cigar scheme.  But I have about 7 or 8 brass models to paint.  I have one customer that wants most of those--- so I thought it would be important to have all the decals identical- rather than from multiple sources.    I would LOVE Todd to provide all I need, but based on my own personal experience and the experience of others... I don't think I can count on it.

Thus I'm going out on my own.

BTW- my comments are in no way intended to trash Todd.  He's done good work.   I just hear he's not that interested in the decal business much anymore.

[Missaberoad]

Decal issues aside, (unfortunate, since he has alot of interesting products on his site)
It would still seem that the font on the boxcabs is nearly identical to that on the bipolar, perhaps you can create your artwork from this photo. (clearest and closest shot to a broadside I could find)

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/milw/milw-E30dsa.jpg

[u18b]

OK.  I'm going to do some comparing.

Here is the prototype shot of the Railroad Fair loco-- a great side on shot.




And here is my custom font lettering that I placed directly over the shot.


And by the way, here is the first model I made.



And now here is a more straight on shot of the boxcab loco mentioned above.
From Milwaukee Road West by Wood and Wood, p. 127.  Cropped for research purposes.



I'm going to take this to Corel Draw and use it to compare the RR Fair font I made.

[u18b]

OK.  This was helpful.

My hunch all along was that this later font was COMPRESSED.  It is most exaggerated in the M, L, W and E.
And this comparison shows that to be the case.

The drawing is of the 1948 Railroad Fair font.
The photo is from 1957.



So I think this is good evidence that they compressed the font for the cigar scheme.

And until someone shows me a better side-on shot of an EP-2, then I agree that this boxcab lettering appears to be the same.

[u18b]

Lot of hard work.

But this is getting closer.

[Missaberoad]

Looking good! 

It's interesting how many variations Milwaukee used of that basic font.
The ribside boxcars used a version where the letters appear to even more compressed then the cigar band scheme.