Did any lettering appear on the rear of the centipede tenders used with the R-1d Mountain steam locomotives? Did they carry locomotive numbers or coal and water capacities? If there was anything located there, what style(font) was the printing?

I believe the lettering on the rear of those cars was in bob brinkman gothic

I just consulted the late Harry Frye's "Minuteman Steam", and unfortunately saw no photos showing the rear of the tenders. The sides of the tender had either the "as delivered" square logo, or later on the "speed lettering" (Late 40's? Early 50's?, I really don't know)

All the photos of the rear of tenders in this book simply show the engine number. Hope this helps!

Where the R-1's, sub class a through c (rd no#s 4100-4112)ever given the speed letter treatment? I'm doing some research on them and have never seen a photo of them with anything other than the as-delivered square herald.

The R-1 a thru c classes had names (see below), but I don't think they received the speed lettering. This information came from the North American Steam Loco site.

R-1a 4100 Endurance
R-1a 4101 Hannah Dustin
R-1a 4102 Cardigan
R-1a 4103 Oliver Wendell Holmes
R-1a 4104 Bee & Emma

R-1b 4105 Powwow River
R-1b 4106 Little John
R-1b 4107 Intrepid
R-1b 4108 Lilly Pons
R-1b 4109 Bumble Bee

R-1c 4110 Calvin Coolidge
R-1c 4111 Trojan
R-1c 4112 Swallow

R-1d 4113 Black Arrow
R-1d 4114 Invincible
R-1d 4115 Casey Jones
R-1d 4116 American Progress
R-1d 4117 Hercules


Red Shaded Speed Lettering

Boston and Maine is lettered in large gold (sometimes silver or white) characters shaded with red on the tender side. The engine number is applied to the cab side in the same font. A red stripe is applied to the running board edge. The tender lettering is usually enclosed in a large, round-cornered box of gold/red (or silver/red) striping, but this doesn't appear in photos of 3713 on the final steam trip in July 1956. The R-1d Mountains were delivered in this scheme in 1941. During and after the war it was applied to P-3, P-4 and P-5 Pacifics. Accu-Cals set 5805H, for this scheme in HO scale, doesn't include any gold lettering, only silver.

Thanks Ron, can you give us the address of that site?
Incidentally, I have been told that one of the R-1 tenders that went to the B&O still survives, forgotten on a siding somewhere in Ohio, where it was parked as an aux. water tank!

I bought a Key R1c from Bob Buck, about 4 years ago. It was done in the speed lettering , as 4110, Calvin Coolidge. I don't know where the origional owner got the info on the newer paint. I questioned Bob about it. His reply was that for something like that, they must have researched it.

Anything can happen in the land of make believe. case in point; the "B&M" camelbacks some distributor was marketing a few years ago.

I have a ( Calendar ) photo of 1982, which shows engine # 4103 with the speed lettering. Although this is a black and white photo, the design of the speed lettering can be plainly seen. The stripe surrounding the Boston and Maine lettering I am quite sure is red, which is consistent with the design used on the R-l-D class engines ( Nos 4113 - 4117 ). I was surprised to see it .
I thought that among the R class engines, only the R-1-Ds had the speed lettering.

the photo is captioned as follows:

" Boston and Maine #4103, a 4-8-2 rounding the long 2% grade heading east to Baldwinwille, Massachusetts. September 1944."

Berton G. Towle ( either the photographer , or the contributer. )

I have one of the B&MRRHS movies. it show the R2a-c classes being towed by a FT set, likely on the way to the B&O. Some of them are clearly in speed lettering.

Mountains, classes R-1a, b, and c, did in fact get the speed lettering treatment. Having looked through all the photos I have here of Mountains, I've found that they probably all got the treatment. The only ones I couldn't find photo proof of were 4102-4104-4106-4111, that's not to say they didn't get speed lettering before they left for the B&O, only that I have no photographic proof. Also 4100 is the only one I could find that did not get the red striping around the tender, sorry, no shots of the back of the tender, people just didn't shoot pictures of that end.