Railroad Gothic was originally designed in 1906 for ATF (American Type Founders). This uppercase-only typeface is very condensed and also heavy, giving it a distinct 19th American wood type feeling. Like those 19th Century classics, Railroad Gothic is best used when set really big. Originally designed for use in railroad signage, Railroad Gothic has since been adapted for use in many American tabloid journals, which employ it in screaming headlines. When you need to set something large and loud for the whole world to see, this old ATF classic may be right for you. Railroad Gothic is an all caps font, and is available in digital format exclusively from Linotype. The typeface is included in the Take Type 4 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Railhead is a revival of an 1870s type style that was originally available from both the Bruce foundry in New York and James Conner's Sons type foundry. The Redux version is the original design but only the uppercase and punctuation were ever created the rest of this font design including numbers, accented characters and lowercase are of my own design. Looking at the original font the inside rails reminded me of a railroad so I created a new version by adding horizontal lines in the lower portion of each letter which resemble railroad ties and Railhead seemed to be the most logical name for this old revival.

Railroad Gothic Pro is a condensed, sans serif typeface, exclusively licensed from the Ludlow Collection. The original Railroad Gothic was produced by Ludlow in the early 1900’s, and Steve Jackaman (ITF) produced the digital version in 2017. The font provides support for Latin 1, Central, and Eastern European languages, and Cyrillic. Railroad Gothic Pro is reminiscent of typefaces used in 1900’s railyards, hence the name.

The block style lettering with rounded corners found on a package for model railroad kit parts was the inspiration for Model Railroad JNL.

First introduced by the American Type Founders Company in 1906, Railroad Gothic was the quintessential typographic expression of turn-of-the-century industrial spirit—bold and brash in tone, and a little rough around the edges. A favorite for the plain speak of big headlines, Railroad Gothic quickly gained popularity among printers. Its condensed but robust forms were likely a source of inspiration for later families of industrial sans serifs. The design feels like a cleaned-up version of some earlier Victorian gothics, notable for their uneven proportions and awkward letterforms. ATF offered a number of sizes of Railroad Gothic as metal type, with cuts varying in design considerably from size to size. Creating this new digital version involved interpreting the characteristics of different sizes and making some aesthetic choices: where to retain the design’s familiar unstudied gawkiness, and where to make improvements. The new ATF® Railroad Gothic features a measured, harmonious interpretation of the original, and has been extended with four new weights (each bolder than the last). The heaviest weights are carefully designed to keep counters open, no matter how dense the overall effect may be, maintaining legibility at any display size. This contemporary rendition of a historic American design boasts a full Latin character set, including glyphs undreamed-of in the heyday of railroads.