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Steam era Southern 'Not to be Moved' boards


PhilH
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Although not much used back in the day I decided I wanted some 'Not to be Moved' boards on the trainset. I found a photo of one online which looked vaguely similar to a grainy photo of one on a Bulleid pacific I'd seen. I manipulated the photo and came up with a (to me) usable result (see photo). However I understand it's more Western than Southern, so my question is can anyone point me towards a colour photo of a Southern example please?

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Edited by PhilH
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On 29/06/2021 at 16:19, PhilH said:

....... a grainy photo of one on a Bulleid pacific ... However I understand it's more Western than Southern, ....

If you saw it on a Southern loco it's unlikely to be a Western board as the lamp brackets are the wrong way round on Swindon locos ............. unless the boards were made to be universal - which, knowing Swindon, is unlikely !

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16 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

If you saw it on a Southern loco it's unlikely to be a Western board as the lamp brackets are the wrong way round on Swindon locos ............. unless the boards were made to be universal - which, knowing Swindon, is unlikely !

Or was it a fomer Southern shed which had been transferred to the Western and some boards were adapted to suit?  Of course a possible explanation is that the Southern and Western boards were similar.

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A quick skim through 'Southern Steam on Shed' and 'More Southern Steam on Shed' found the majority of locos photographed to be in steam - as you'd expect ............ In the background there's just one "NOTMOVEABLE" board on 'D' class 31755 at Guildford 'in the mid 1950s'. While this is much the same shape as the Western one it's poorly stencilled on a flat plate - so maybe the Southern didn't have an 'official' version ??!?

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16 hours ago, Right Away said:

Just a point, Phil. Those boards were used often; primarily whenever staff were working on a locomotive, especially beneath or on “inside” motions.

 

 

Not everybody did apparently, this from a friend of mine, an ex BR(S) steam driver.

'As Cleaners were made to use them and the fitters and shed staff used to put them on, but footplate staff never bothered. I don’t think that 1, there were enough to go round and , 2, management were prepared to push the issue. It was difficult enough to get an engine off shed in an hour without having to collect and return Not to be Moved boards. We would probably have demanded another 5 to 10 minutes prep time to fetch and return them. For my part I was always there at least 30 mins early if I had to get an engine ready and If I was going to do anything underneath I would tie a red flag to the regulator handle. On several occasions I remember dropping back down into the pit on hearing a Loco rumble into the shed behind mine, just in case he couldn’t stop."
 

Bob is also a fellow ex-driver on the Mid Hants Railway where it is a must do if working on/ prepping an engine. He was the one who pointed out that my effort was a GWR example (thanks Bob....) and as WGt pointed out above seems to remember them as painted flat boards, very similar in fact to those we use on the MHR.
And which, of course, having volunteered up there for decades I never got a photo of.

 

Thanks for the replies, it's a detail that not many seem to bother with. I think I'll obtain a photo of the MHR sort and use that.

Edited by PhilH
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