Orange patches on Van B

[Guest Jack Benson]

Hi,

 

 I haven't got a copy of the Oakwood book, can someone explain the true significance of the orange paches on the Van B?

 

Thank you

 

JB

[Wickham Green]

Specifically to indicate that they had stoves to keep the guard warm - but, yes, the Southern didn't want to keep other Railways' guards warm so restricted them to home metals. There's a question about how orange the patches were - some sources suggest more yellow than orange ! ( Intriguingly, there's a photo of a NON-Southern bogie van in https://www.amazon.co.uk/Historic-Carriage-Drawings-Vol-Non-Passenger/dp/1899816097 which seems to have similar patches - can't remember what it is I'm afraid ..... and no idea whether the significance is the same ! )

 

The safe fitted vans had red patches to denote their special status - until they were painted red in BR days, when they got blue patches. Running numbers on these vans were very much larger than normal.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green said:

 Intriguingly, there's a photo of a NON-Southern bogie van in https://www.amazon.co.uk/Historic-Carriage-Drawings-Vol-Non-Passenger/dp/1899816097 which seems to have similar patches - can't remember what it is I'm afraid ..... and no idea whether the significance is the same ! 

On page 15 there's a picture of a Highland 37' 9" bogie brake at New Street in 1954 with the bottom panel of the guards door and the extreme ends of the top panel painted in a different colour to the rest of the body. It also carries STOVE branding. Three vehicles were rebuilt to brake vans from older mail vans around WW1.

[Ben Alder]

Here is a crop from an image of a SR van at The Mound, so this one at least escaped  to wander.

[Wickham Green]

I guess the fact that The Mound is on Highland territory is a total red ( or orange ) herring !!?!

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, Ben Alder said:

Here is a crop from an image of a SR van at The Mound, so this one at least escaped  to wander.

Possibly the one photographed behind a Brit on a parcels train at Tebay in 1967?

Third picture down.