In reality, the PRR got much of its electrification done through government funds during the Great Depression. I don't think it was WPA, but it was a similar government program. In my altered history, the entire system is not electrified. Only the NEC and lines in PA, NY, CO, and CA are electrified. My PRR used the same government money that the real PRR used to create jobs all across the country. Expanded electric service came more recently as local governments, and later the federal government, began investing in high-speed passenger traffic.
I should very much like to see the complete story of your "New PRR". From what I have read so far, I like the ideas. What piques my interest is that had a few variables been more variable, the PRR might well have survived to the 21st century. I personally feel that a few electric interurban lines could have survived had they lasted until the mid 1960s when local govt's started forming regional public transit agencies. That is how the South Shore line survived, and even at that, they were just hours away from abandoning the passenger rail service. The management of the PRR and NYC were of the"bean counter" culture. They weren't operating department railroaders. Operating Dep't knew how to cut corners and make do without wholesale cutting of services and operations. Every working railroader today can tell horror stories about the college boys in the management training with theie business and economics degrees. Not a one of them has a whit of railroad sense. We had one budding genius publish a General Order several years back mandating that handbrakes be applied to 50% of the cars whenever the locomotive would be cut away from the train and the trackage would have a gradient of xx% Well sir, this GO applied to the mains at Eola Yard. There were several trains that would make set-outs and pick-ups there. It was taking 2 to 3 hours to tie the required amount of handbrakes, then the set-out/pick up had to be done. Then the locomotive would be cut away from the train for four hours or more which then required an Initial Terminal Air Brake test. Since there were no carmen at Eola, the crews had to do the air test. Crews were outlawing en masse! The mains were plugged until fresh crews could arrive. That GO didn't last very long! Thanks for giving us a good change of pace! CT
I know this thread hasn't been active for awhile, and got a little off topic, but I am moving ahead with this project, and am again looking for opinions. In my history, the PRR inaugurated high speed service in California in the early 2000's. The state of the art at that time was Siemens's ICE-3, so that's the hardware that's going to be used. Any more thoughts on what the paint scheme might have looked like? This is the best I've come up with: I've thought about how to do one based on the FOM or another classic scheme, but I don't like how the darker schemes look. Thoughts/comments?
That's the plan right now, but I'm open to other suggestions. That's simply the scheme that looks the best to me out of everything I've tried so far.
I found a PRR logo that would look good on the front of any loco (I dont know where I got it). It is a chopped version of the pin stripe PRR. I have thought of using it on my Pittsburgh Terminal District of which I'm writing my own story.
The DB ICE's white scheme works with the bright red stripe and sans-serif lettering. If your PRR still uses transition-era DGLE, Tuscan and gold serif font, white doesn't look so good. Dark colors are less usual for high-speed trains; they seem to be like aircraft in that regard. I do like the exceptions: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E655-test_run.jpg
Here's a "Darth Vader" version without PRR lettering, just the keystones. And the original for comparison.
I would argue that given the way Graphic arts and logos have gone over the course of time that it is exceedingly unlikely that Penn would have kept it's font and font size into the modern era. A good example of this would be Santa Fe. The original Warbonnet used a small black font, but by the 60s and 70s that was gone in favor of large size and distinctive fonts. Something that carried over to the superfleet. I would use the UP Heritage fleet, the KCS scheme and the Santa Fe Superfleet as examples on how to update to modern sensibilities. Or, perhaps better, I'd look at Amtrak Phase V and see how you might adapt that to Pennsy colors.
I agree about the typeface, especially with the trends toward and then away from serif fonts. Unfortunately, I'm somewhat constrained by the fact that I need decals to do the lettering, so I'm stuck with what's commercially available. That means Futura or Clarendon, and the Futura options are extremely limited as far as size and character spacing. As far as the rest of the paint scheme is concerned, there's very little in the US that I can use as a model. The Acela scheme is a little too complicated for me to take on, and I don't really like it as a high-speed scheme. If you look at the schemes of DB, SNCF, RENFE, JNR, and pretty much everyone else that runs high speed rail, the high speed passenger trains usually have unique schemes, very distinct from freight schemes.
You could always do your own decals Then you have a near unlimited choice in fonts...at the cost of time and effort. Of course, I'm just giving a personal opinion here. Don't let me stop you. Oy, I just had a comically horrible thought. I was thinking of the Conrail logo as a way Pennsy might have gone and that led my brain directly to the idea of the older Phillies logo P or some twisted version of the Portland Trailblazers logo. GAH
Oy, It hurts. Turn the conrail logo 90 degrees counter clockwise and flip it. There's your 1970s/1980s Pennsy.
Since, apart from UP, North American railroads haven't kept the same paint scheme (more or less) since the transition era, if you want to use old PRR colors, how about designing a 60s-80s-style scheme, and then having a retro scheme like KCS?
A retro scheme would be good, but I still think the font would be more bold as would the pin striping. That's what I was recommending when talking about the Santa Fe. Heck, even BNSF's Heritage 1&2 are very much modern takes on the old Great Northern Scheme.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, as the PRR returned to profitability in the 1980's, management wanted to move away from the bare-bones schemes and power of the '60's and '70's. A new generation of motive power was purchased, and new schemes were selected. The inspiration came from the PRR's history, and the new schemes were designed to recall the glory days of the railroad. Convenient excuse to use old decals, huh? :tb-biggrin: It's interesting that you mention the UP, because that is one of the reasons that I don't mind imagining a railroad that maintained its corporate identity and colors. If the UP can do it, even though it's not really the UP anymore, why couldn't the ultra-conservative PRR do it?
