Cast locomotive number plates

At some point in its "austerity" era, the SE&CR replaced the cast brass numbers and number plates carried by its locomotives and tenders with cast iron versions. Typically in the Wainwright era, tender locos had stamped brass numbers on the cab sides and an oval cast brass number on the back of the tender; these were replaced with a small cast iron "SE&CR" plate on the loco and a cast iron number on the back of the tender.

This was done not only for new locos, but also for existing ones - which seems quite a lot of work.

I have a hunch as to why it was done, but no evidence to say so. But with that in mind, is anyone aware of other pre-grouping railways at the time (World War 1 era) who made a similar change, in particular replacing brass for iron numbers, plates or similar.

Tom

 

CIE removed cast (iron) numberplates from its locos and painted large numerals on the cabsheets or tank side instead, this would have been from approx 1945 onwards.

Keith

 

The new locomotives built for the Highland Railway in the latter years of WW1 were delivered with steel fireboxes, which proved unsatisfactory and were replaced in the early 1920's. I would guess that there was a severe shortage of non-ferrous metals from around 1916, particularly copper and brass, which was required in large volumes for production of shell and cartridge cases.

 

That was my hunch - in the SECR case, not only avoiding brass for new construction where possible, but going so far as to recover unnecessary brass and replace with iron. But I have no documentary proof, hence being interested if there were other examples.

Tom

 

Did they use the brass plates as patterns or was their a "standard" pattern which had different numbers fitted to it?

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The cast iron ones are a completely different shape - rectangular rather than oval.

See for example:

http://www.ten.rhrp.org.uk/tens/TenderInfo.asp?Ref=85

That was the old (pre-austerity) form. They then changed to the form shown here:

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Issue-3-final.pdf - see article on page 19.

That change happened not just for new build, but also for old tenders. At the same time, cab side numbers were replaced with cast iron "SE&CR" signs, which were then sometimes replaced again in SR days with new brass oval cab side number plates!

All of which in turn makes me think that it was related to recovery of the brass from the old plates, and the timing suggests a war time reason, not primarily about cost saving. But confirmation of other railways doing similar at the same time would be interesting.

Tom

 

I'm not sure of my facts here Tom but in 1915 there was something named the 'Shell Crisis' where the demand and cost of munitions naturally increased significantly compounded by loss of production in the low countries. I would easily imagine a similar phenomenon in the 1940s too.

 

I think the GWR had a mix of cast iron cabside numbers for the "lesser" freight locomotives and cast brass for the passenger locomotives.

 

I think this, was particularly during the inter-war period and I suspect that several preserved locos carrying brass plates should have cast iron ones.

 

I have looked in the RCTS SECR locomotives book. Bradley makes no direct comment about the reason for removal of the brass plates but states that large numbers were painted on the locos or tenders to allow a train reporting system to be used and the original numbers were removed at this time. Cast iron ownership plates were fitted at the same time.

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At the risk of thread drift, although "namers" all [?] had brass cabsides, it was not quite as simple as that, as certain classes had examples of both e.g. 28xx, 41xx, 42xx, 45xx, 57xx, 63xx, 66xx etc.

 

The GWR don't appear to have gone over to cast iron until the middle of 1919, which is a bit odd, especially when you consider that they had been removing brass beading during the war. I'm not aware of any brass plates being replaced by cast iron ones, other than for engines which had been renumbered. The earliest example I know of the GWR using cast iron is on the eleven 53xx's which were sent to France in 1917, it would be interesting to know if there were any other examples from this time. The Dean Goods sent abroad had their plates removed, I assume it was the same for the Armstrongs as well.

As mentioned above, they used cast iron for 'lesser' engines, but there were phases where they reverted to brass, while the engines built by outside contractors also tended to have brass plates, so you can get quite a bit of variety within a single class.