Rail Alphabet

Rail Alphabet is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network. First used at Liverpool Street station, it was then adopted by the Design Research Unit (DRU) as part of their comprehensive 1965 rebranding of the company. It was later used by other public bodies in the United Kingdom. A redesigned version, Rail Alphabet 2, is planned to be used across the Great British Railways network, whilst the double arrow logo will also be restored as the primary brand identifier for the network. Rail Alphabet is similar to a bold weight of Helvetica, but with some differences in character shapes, stroke width and x-height to aid legibility. The typeface also has some similarities to Akzidenz-Grotesk, which had earlier provided the same designers the broad inspiration for the Transport typeface used for road signs in the United Kingdom. The typeface was designed specifically for signage and the designers included features to support this such as a bespoke letter-spacing system and two slightly different weights to provide optimum visibility on both light and dark backgrounds.

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0