As well as XM-30’s, the XA-14A’s
were also built in 1937, the apparent start of the EW slogan era. I don’t
have any specific information as to which were built first, other than the May
1937 ORER which lists the XM-30’s but with no number of cars shown
(suggesting that they were ordered and numbers allocated but no built at the
time of printing). However, the XA-14A’s were not listed at all, so I
suspect that the box cars were built first.
Looking at the EW slogans, they were not all the same, with at least three
styles, as per the attached. The first ones on the XM-30 / XM-31 built in 1937 /
1938-9 were split, with the “Every” on an angle and the “- where”
and “West” horizontal. The underlining of the “Every-where”
was curved along its length. The slogan on the XA-14 built in 1937 was more
similar to the “standard” slogan with all of it being on a 30
degree diagonal. However, the underlining was a straight line throughout. The underlining
on the EW slogan from the XM-32’s onwards (1940) was curved under the
first part of the word, clearly shown in the diagram taken from Bulletin 7.
It is interesting that the second (diagonal) style was adopted in 1937 for the
XA-14A’s but the XM-31’s were painted with the original style.
Rupert Gamlen