Typophile

FONT FOR OLD MUNICIPAL SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY LOGO

bfingeroth

Hi,

Can anyone identify the font (or recommend something similar if its hand drawn) in this logo for the San Francisco Municipal Railway?

Thanks.

Riccardo Sartori

It most certainly is hand drawn.
If an existing typeface was the model, someone could come up with a match.
In the meantime, looking for “railway” at MyFonts, brings some interesting results.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Western Railway (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/jnlevine/western-railway/) has a similar flavour to the words (it needs some condensing for “Municipal”), while something from Greater Albion Typefounders (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/gatf/birmingham-new-street/ http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/gatf/great-bromwich/) could give you the |F|.

Donald H. Tucker

Lettering circa 1900.
The winged _M_, heavy letters and big serifs have some similarity to Heirloom Artcraft Black

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/baselinefonts/heirloom-artcraft/
compare to a slick lighter version of Artcraft
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ascender/artcraft-pro/
Don

Donald H. Tucker

Typo corrected:
Post Old Style has some similarity -- note in particular the _R_ -- and there is a digital version by Jeff Levine as Lamp Post JNL

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/jnlevine/lamp-post/ but the letters are too wide.
Don

Riccardo Sartori

Some of the serifs, and especially the |A|s have a Latin shape (http://www.myfonts.com/search/latin/), which, I think, make them optically better suited to be placed on an arc.

Donald H. Tucker

Consider ITC Barcelona Heavy

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/itc/barcelona/
Don

bfingeroth

Thank you all very much for the suggestions.

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