help needed

Hi, I'm afraid I'm a bit new to all this but have found this railway plate in the garden of my new house and would like to restore it. Could anyone tel l me a bit about it and how I could restore it please.

 

It looks like a lenders plate - in the days before security for lending could be registered with Companies House, items of machinery would have plate such as this one physically attached to it to notify anyone thinking of seizing it as payment for other debts that it was already "charged" against other borrowing and so had to be left for the lender. Its not entirely clear what the lenders name is but the wording is something like "Owners Dacom Finance Corporation Ltd Sheffield 50733". Ideally you need to see if you can work out what the word that looks like "Dacom" or "Bacon" (may just be that I'm hungry!) is and see if you can find out anything about that company. I suspect the interest in this plate is more to do with the history of that lending house than railways as such - it may have been attached to a railway asset but equally it could have been on something else entirely. The history of the land before your house was built might give some hints - e.g. if there was a factory there previously its likely to have been on one of the machines.

 

Hi, thank you for the reply, I think the word you're taking about says wagon and it's followed by the word finance. Have you any ideas about how I could restore it?

 

As the company fitting the plate was the owner, it would be the lessor rather than a lender, and would / could not register a charge as it already has superior title as owner. Owners plates are still common to make it clear to a receiver or liquidator of an operator that the asset does not belong to the operator, on assets from photocopiers to 747s (and their engines). I would use a wire brush, and a small metal chisel. Clear matt varnish over the cleaned up plate can look good rather than the usual white on black.

 

See http://www.gloucesterrailwayana.com/pic2.php?num=wp258

 

If you have a bead blasting company nearby a few minutes with them will soon bring the plate up to ready for painting condition.

Don't touch the back though - and no - its not of any great value, I'm afraid.

 

Remember many of the Private Owner wagons of the smaller firms (and could be a lot of the big firms as well) were all on higher purchases so the wagons would had a plate like this put on the sole-bar.