The Railroad Commissary
Welcome to The Railroad Commissary's
Rock Island / CRI&P supplementary information page. Please feel free to send questions or comments to: rrcomm@sonic.net Relevant information, and credits, will be posted.
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Cardinal / Farrington Pattern
According to avid collector Mark Morrisky, the white with red stripe china used by the Rock Island was not standard "Cardinal" china, but rather a similar, but custom variation. He calls the pattern "Farrington". As per his research, the "Santa Rosa Crimson" stripe was usually placed a little further from the edge when compared to standard Cardinal pattern china. Thus, "Farrington" china was actually an economy version of RI "El Reno" pattern china. Even so, it was un-marked for the RI, and would take a very careful study to discern which of any particular very similar looking china items might be Farrington or Cardinal. Contrary to popular belief though, very little "Farrington" was made using Econo-Rim china - only 7" and 9" plates.
La Salle Pattern
See notes for Princeton below.
Princeton Pattern
The difference between the Princeton Pattern and the La Salle Pattern is nothing more than that the
La Salle Pattern has an additional red stripe just above (on bowls and cups), or outside of (on plates),
the series of orange triangles. Some say that Princeton looks like a "faded" La Salle, but a piece of Princeton in good condition looks exactly like a piece of good condition La Salle, except for the stripe.
Most of the "faded" pieces that I have seen also looked pretty scuffed up.
