Hazmat Placards file

[nkalanaga]

Lets see how this works.  The file prints at 800 DPI, and should be printed on "good quality", smooth paper, not ordinary printer paper.  Photo paper will work, but would be rather thick.  If you need a lot of placards this will probably be cheaper than decals.  Just cut the pictures apart along the dividing lines, or in the case of the Explosive A placards, between the lines.  They should have a square background with a black border.

I had some trouble getting Imgur to save the file at its original size as a .jpg file, so its a .gif.  The image here is NOT full size, open or "save link" the linked file, which should be 3200x3540 pixels, and 1266 KB



The placards will work for scales other than N, but you're on your own as to scaling them. 

[Snark45]

Very thoughtful. Thanks a lot.  Harry

[SSW7771]

This is great! Thanks

[nkalanaga]

You're welcome.  I got tired of 1) buying MicroScale decal sets that would do three or four tank cars, and never using the rest of the set, and 2) trying to apply decals to MT placard holders smaller than the decals.  They turned out quite nice, and I figured others might be able to use them.  Print as many copies as you, or your friends, need, and if you need more of one of the one-panel placards, feel free to edit the file in your favorite image processing program. 

[peteski]

Nice job Nick!  Good idea about using GIF format since GIF (or PNG) is better than JPG (especially for this type of image) as it doesn't use lossy compression.

[rschaffter]

Those are Great!    Thanx!

[carlso]

nk, I know I am not the brightest bulb in the pack but I have not been able to get it down to n scale size. Any suggestion?

Carl

[peteski]

nk, I know I am not the brightest bulb in the pack but I have not been able to get it down to n scale size. Any suggestion?

Carl

I don't know what software you use to print it out. The file is made at 800dpi.  If you print it at that resolution it should have the correct size.  I use corel Draw and If I place 800dpi bitmap in the drawing it will print out correctly sized.

[nkalanaga]

I use a photo-processing program that came with my last PC, and was copied to this one.  Like Peteski's, it allows me to chose the DPI, and I set it at 800. 

If you don't have that option, but can set the image size, the image is exactly 4 inches wide, 3200 pixels at 800/inch.

Other than that I don't have any ideas.  My current PC has the "Microsoft Photo Editor" utility, but it rejects the file as "too many bytes", which is the first time I've seen it do that.  On the other hand, I don't use it that much.  "Paint" will open it, as that's where I created the file, but it apparently doesn't allow the resolution to be selected when printing.  I'll admit that I never thought of that problem...

One suggestion, if you have a Windows system, is to insert the picture in a Word document, and set the width to 4 inches.  However, I tried that, and it replaced the third row of placards with a large green rectangle.  Weird.  Setting the paper to "Legal" got most of the last row, so apparently Word has a default resolution AND won't allow a picture bigger than the page size.  Once the image was set at 4 inches wide, by right clicking on the image and choosing "Size" on the pop-up box, I then had to change the paper size back.  That worked, the print was the right size, and all I lost was the lower portion of the Explosive placards.  Unless you're modeling a munitions plant there should still be plenty of them.

If you really need them, and have to resort to Word to print the file, Paint will allow you to edit the file.  You can break it into two or three smaller files, which will fit on a page before resizing them, and Word should be happy.

I could probably convert the original to a PDF file, but have never tried that, and wouldn't have the slightest idea where to post it so others could find it...  If anyone here wants to do that, I give you my permission.

The use of GIF wasn't because of any wisdom on my part, although it worked out well.  My original file is a bitmap file, and far too large to upload to most free photo sharing sites, at a little over 11,000 KB.  I tried JPG, and Imgur.com insisted on changing the size, even though the original file was within their limits.  They accepted the GIF unchanged, so that's what I used.

[peteski]

Good idea Nick. I created a PDF file with a properly sized image. It is attached to this post. That should work for everybody (as long as they select "no scaling" or "print actual size" while printing on a letter size paper).

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[carlso]

Thanks peteski, that worked well.

Carl

[garethashenden]

These look modern to me but I have no idea when they were introduced. Does anyone know when hazmat placards became common/required?

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  Thank you!  That will make it easier for everyone.

garethashenden:  They were common by the mid 70s.  These were created from images of "modern" placards, with some minor tweaking to match the ones in a 1977 Hazmat manual, so they are certainly suitable for any time after 1977.  I actually used PDF files designed to print prototype placards for shipping use, by converting them to ordinary image files and then editing, shrinking, and copying them.

The ones I've found from the early 70s look just like the 1977 versions, so I assume they're good back to at least 1970.  Before that I have no idea. 

I'll second the question:  Does anyone know when standardized placards came into common use?

[Snark45]

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/p/221383/2450447.aspx

Short internet search turned up this...

[nkalanaga]

Snark45:  I read that, and the blog it linked to.  The best I can figure out mine are suitable for at least part of the 1970s, possibly all of them, and I know they're good for 1977 on.  I'll assume they're good for my 1974 railroad.  They're probably NOT good for earlier than 1970, and certainly not for the early 1960s and before.

1981+ placards should have the single-digit UN class in the lower corner, but I removed that from the original images to make older placards.  As small as these things are, I doubt that most people would notice the difference without a magnifier, so one could probably get away with using them on a 1980s layout.  This style is still shown in a 1996 hazmat manual I have, so should be good for the 90s as well, if you can overlook the missing number.

Modern placards usually have the UN product number instead of the hazard class name, but at least one site says it is permissible to use the hazard-class type placard with the UN number on a separate label.

It's surprisingly hard to find a picture of a tank car with a readable placard from the 60s and 70s.  How did so many people manage to take pictures of unplacarded cars, especially cars clearly in fuel service?