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BR(W) Train reporting numbers.


Jon Fitness

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  • 2 weeks later...

I appreciate not WR but seems an appropriate recent thread to raise this question. On Sunday, in the excellent bookshop at horsted Keynes station, I invested in a book called gwr in pictures in the 1930s (or similar, can't recall exact title). It looks a good book and, unusually in my experience, also gives details on the carriages as well as the locos in the pictures. However, one thing puzzled me. I noticed some expresses, mostly king hauled, had reporting numbers but others didn't. Is there a reason for this? Obvious explanation would be rule only introduced after date x - was that the case?

 

 

Edit: apols if I've missed the answer elsewhere in this or other thread!

 

David

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IIRC reporting numbers were introduced in 1936.  There are other possible explanations for trains not carrying them - not enough frames and no chalk to write the number on the smokebox, as was common in the 50s, or the photo having been taken other than on a Saturday - I believe/have read somewhere that less importance was placed on displaying the numbers during the week.

 

If someone who actually knows about this thinks that I have written tosh, lease feel free to put me right!

 

Chris

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Thanks to everyone for bringing the Ed Chaplin resource to my attention through this thread.  And thanks, of course, to Ed Chaplin should he read these pages!  It seems clear now to me that the "wrong" numbers were often left on locos.  I seem to have a number of examples:  notably a "508", which seems to have been for Minehead to Paddington, on a train clearly headed West through Southcote Junction.

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