Clayton Class 17 Works Plate? Confirmation Required...

I have a works plate which bears the following:

The Clayton Equipment Co. Ltd.
Record Works, Hatton
Derby, England
Serial No. 4365/B 99 Date 1963​

Now I had always assumed that it was from a Clayton Class 17, but the Class 17 page at RailBlue (http://www.railblue.com/pages/In%20Depth/class_17_claytons.htm) shows the last Clayton-built example D8587 as bearing number 4365U88. I understand the "B" on my worksplate denotes that it is a bogie plate, so it could presumably come from some other Clayton product and not a Class 17 at all. This is assuming that the bogie plates on D8587 would be 4365B/88. I don't know the details of their construction but wonder if Clayton built the bogie for the Beyer Peacock batch from D8588 onwards, but gave them their own bogie numbers. The plate does have "D8598" faintly marked on the back in something that looks like black crayon - this would be the source loco if the sequence carried on from the Clayton batch, but I've no evidence that this means anything.

Can any provide any information (or even entertaining speculation) on where this item came from?

Apologies in advance if the information is already somewhere on the web and I've missed it.

Thanks,

Chris Veitch

 

Were Beyer Peacock sub-contracted the job of building a batch by Claytons? That might explain a Clayton plate. D8598 was used by Derby Research Dept from 1971 to 1978.

 

I have a photograph of the works plate carried by D8568 at Clitheroe taken in 1982 and all it has on it is 'Clayton' (in a stylised script) EQUIPMENT CO. LTD

HATTON DERBY.

No works numbers or dates.

 

Yes but the order for D8588 - 8615 was given directly to Beyer Peacock in July 1962 in an attempt to help the company survive the shortfall in orders - especially once the Class 37 had been selected rather than Class 35 Hymek orders for South Wales. The problem with companies is that by 1962 there were various loose arrangements between Brush Traction, Beyer Peacock ( who built Class 31 components ), Clayton ( who nominally built the Class 47s for Cuba ) and Yorkshire Engine Co ( who built the first 10 Class 15s from which the Class 17s were developed ).

 

Interesting - if the main works plates were like that and the bogie plates carried a "B" reference, where did they carry the main "U" number?

Chris

 

I should add that the suggestion that this is a bogie plate comes from the description in this sale catalogue entry http://www.gcrauctions.com/sale122/lot52.html which mentions the "fact".

Regards,

Chris

 

Clayton (Class 17) works numbers were 4365U1 for D8500 through to 4365U88 to D8587. The last 29 (D8588 - D8616) were built by Beyer Peacock carrying works numbers 8005 - 8033. If you follow the logic through then 4365B99 would have been D8598.
These are bogie plates and (now I'm guessing) presume that Clayton supplied the bogies to Beyer Peacock for the last batch of loco's hence they carried Clayton plates with numbers sequential from the main build.

I see the plate is now on Ebay . . . . . . . .