Otto Vondrak wrote:This is the most Penn Central-ish bank logo yet!!
I here Walthers is coming out with that bank logo as a decal.
By the way, all kidding still present, I liked the PC insignia. It makes one shape, and is recognizable. I'm not a fan at all of the typeface "Eurostyle."
Way back in the innocent summer of 1966 my good friend and I would wander over to South Chicago and Jeffrey on Chicago's South Side to the NYC/PRR main line. We would climb the embankment with sacks of Carl's hot dogs and fries, and wait for the parade which included the Valpo locals, The General, The New England States, and of course "The Century," and "The Broadway." We did this faithfully almost every afternoon. Our main topic of conversation was what things were going to be like if and when the merger took place. We had no idea of what the new name would be.
Our discussions centered around if the lines merged would "The Century" be painted Tuscan, or would "The Broadway" be painted grey. What dopes we were. It goes right along with the discussions of what "The 20th Century Limited" would be called once we were in the 21st century. We even discussed what a government operated passenger service would look like. I said that would be awfull. They'd (the government aency) would have the observation car in the middle and a baggage car on the hind end.
In previous posts I've mentioned my involvement with The Grand Uniform Company that was at Grand Central Terminal. Grand made the NYC, and NH uniforms. When the merger took place Grand made the PC uniforms for employees of those districts. I bring this up because the only time that visuals of the 2 lines were perfectly merged was in the PC uniforms. To be brief and specific I'll mention the uniform cap badges of The PC. It was a perfect merger. To those of you just waking up this morning the cap badge was the same shape as a NYC badge. The metal (thick, molded, and plated) had the same background texture as a Pennsy badge. The PC insignia was in transparent deep red enamel, and the occupation was in black letters, all similar to the Pennsy badge. The caps had no ornamentation except for 'cap-wire" buttons on the sides. The caps themselves came from Grossman Cap of Phily and were the same as the Pennsy's. To me the uniform was traditional but up-dated. The cap was dignified. I liked it so much that I tried to get The Milwaukee road to change its own cap badges to look similar to PC's, and to have our uniforms made by Grand. I failed at the former, and succeeded at the latter.
In fact when I drew up the specs for Metra's trainmen's uniforms I used those of the PC that had proven so servicable. In fact the Metra caps come from Grossman's succesor, Keystone Cap.
One more thing. In 1978 we went east on Amtrak 48. There it was at Union Station. An observation car in the middle and a baggage car on the hind end.
LOL...