When did Southern officially switch from using Roman lettering to Gothic lettering on the heavyweight passenger cars? How long after this date caould cars be seen in the Roman lettering?

-- Joe Daniels (kjmcjm@home.com), January 20, 2000

Answers

Joe, I have seen some film footage circa 1955. At that time there were still some SR passenger cars still lettered in Roman style lettering; mainly Hayne Shop rebuilds, but also some very old coaches and one heavyweight Pullman.

Ben Lee

-- Ben Lee (Bengineer7@aol.com), January 20, 2000.

The change was directed to be the standard in a memo dated 3/11/54. However since the last new heavyweight baggage cars, nos.525-549 built in 1941 were delivered with gothic and the dinette-coaches rebuilt in 1948 from heavyweight coaches used Roman lettering, the two styles probably coexisted through the forties and early fifties.

I would guess that by the end of the fifties, the Roman style was disappearing, except on the Office cars that retained that style.

-- Jack Wyatt (cjwyatt@wavegate.com), January 20, 2000.