Class 42/43 Warship Nameplate font

[lancer1027]

Quick question really, does anyone know the name of the font used for the class 42/43 Warship nameplates.?

[Andy Kirkham]

The form of the letters is one traditionally used on Great Western nameplates since the 19th Century and is sometimes referred to as "Egyptian". But I suspect that it doesn't correspond closely with any computer font. 

[Rugd1022]

The form of the letters is one traditionally used on Great Western nameplates since the 19th Century and is sometimes referred to as "Egyptian". But I suspect that it doesn't correspond closely with any computer font. 

 

Very close Andy, but I'm sure I read somewhere that Misha Black altered some of the letters very slightly when he drew up the Warship plates for Swindon to have a look at. In fact it might even be mentioned in 'The Book Of The Warships' (can't find my copy, the cat's probably eaten it!).

[K14]

The name itself looks to be a slightly modified version of the GWR nameplate font, but I can't pin down the 'Warship Class' face exactly.

 

That said, here's a quick 'n' dirty Photoshop mash-up using 'Swindon' and 'Franklin Gothic Heavy' :—

 

 

Here's the unadulterated version for comparison:—

 

 

Not a perfect match (& I did mess around with horizontal scaling and tracking/kerning), but probably close enough for most needs.

 

You can download the Swindon font here:—

 

OTF - https://www.dropbox.com/s/1hcxvx2cpdm7yqy/Swindon.otf?dl=0

TTF - https://www.dropbox.com/s/dubdohrq99q4xbs/Swindon.ttf?dl=0

A Zip file containing the *.afm, *.pfm, *.pfb & *.inf files for Adobe Type-1 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/dyxjgxtunwc3kaf/T1_Swindon.zip?dl=0

 

Can't help with Franklin Gothic Heavy as it's copyrighted, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

 

Regards,

 

Pete S.

[lancer1027]

Thankyou guys thats certainly helped.

[Andy Kirkham]

A little Googling shows reveals that apparently "Swindon Egyptian" is a variant of Clarendon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarendon_(typeface)

 

"A heavy bold Clarendon was used for the cast brass locomotive nameplates of the Great Western Railway.^[44] This was however drawn within the Swindon drawing office, not by a type foundry, and this 'Swindon Egyptian' differed in some aspects, most obviously the numerals used for the cabside numberplates."