White disks on the front of steam locomotives

Takes me back. H was Hampton Court, V I think was Kingston roundabout clockwise, S was Shepperton, I was possibly Isleworth (ie Hounslow Loop). Not sure about O, but P was Holborn to Wimbledon to Sutton. Those codes were used on the pre-war stock, the ex LBSCR 44xx and 45xx series being the worst. The post war 4 SUBs had numerical codes, 24 Shepperton, 30 Hampton Court, 42 Guildford via New Line etc. Happy days.

 

According to this https://sremg.org.uk/headcodes/eheadcodes/eheadcodes07.html



Alton - Chertsey (passenger to Woking, then empty)
Waterloo - Alton via Earlsfield (Portsmouth portion in rear)
Waterloo - Bognor Regis via Wimbledon and Horsham
Waterloo - Hounslow via Brentford empties
Waterloo - Waterloo via Hounslow and Richmond
Woking - Alton (ex Waterloo - Portsmouth train)

 

And then a second, differentiated by a bar atop the identifying letter code!

Worth remembering if trying to identify workings from old photographs, the same codes turned up again on SE London/North Kent services.

 

One version of the famous advert from the 1920s listed them as follows:

H - Victoria, Hayes, Hampton Court
O - Epsom Downs, Orpington, Hounslow
V - Epsom, Dartford, Kingston
I - Coulsdon North, Beckenham Junction, Dorking South
S - Sutton, Dartford, Shepperton

There are some "vias" which I can't read on my copy of the advert, hence Dartford (for example) appearing twice.

The big message was "The route to health has Hovis at the end", with five bull nose electrics leading into a loaf of bread.

Tom

 

Dartford needs lots of codes. Via Greenwich and Woolwich, via Bexleyheath, via Sidcup. (North Kent Line via New Cross and Woolwich normally listed as the through route Gillingham or Ramsgate service.)

 

A South Western era Hovis ad went:
H - Hampton Court
Ô - Hounslow (i.e. O with a bar above)
V - Teddington & Kingston
I - Claygate
S - Shepperton
The LSWR poster of the time (1916) gave:
V - Waterloo and Teddington via Wimbledon;
V (bar) - Waterloo and Teddington via Richmond;
S - Waterloo and Teddington and Shepperton via Wimbledon;
P - Waterloo and Wimbledon via East Putney.
Pat

 

A puerile five year old wants to know did

Waterloo - Shepperton via Earlsfield
Waterloo - Weybridge or Chertsey, via Brentford
Waterloo and Woking via Brentford and Ascot
Waterloo - Windsor via Brentford

ever appear next to one another? SWR I assume aren't going to go back to letter headcodes for fear that this might be a description rather than destinations.

The headcode for Epping or Ongar is XXX?

 

Dragging this back to Steam, and discs on the front of same, I am grateful to the editor of 'Swanning Around' for this link:

which is a British Pathé newsreel starting in the (then) new Clapham Transport Museum. At 0m 38s LSWR 563 hoves into view, with the Head Signal for Waterloo, Bournemouth and Weymouth (1892 style). It also has a lamp on the newly introduced 'Special Train' socket on the smokebox door. (Those Eastleigh Works guys really went the distance when they overhauled it in 1947. Those sockets disappeared after 1896.) I wonder what happened to that lamp? LSWR lamps (and discs) wee different in that they were carried in sockets, not on lamp irons. I would dearly like to see it and measure it up as a pattern for having replicas made.
Pat