Enamel advertising signs.

[Moria15]

HI all :)  OK then

 

as per topic title, these signs...  My layout is GWR 1930 - 35  so I know enamel advertising signs were still in use upto 1935, but where to put them?   I know that many platform fences were adorned with these and have found photographic examples, but what about on buildings.  I can find some pictures of them on Station buildings, generally on the outside of the building, not the platform side,  but what about on things like goods sheds and footbridges etc, where they can be seen by public.

 

Was placement allowed anywhere they may be seen by public, or was it more controlled?

 

I don't want to rely on other peoples models, or preserved railways, but wondered if there were any regs or guidelines as to the placement of these at all, or was it down to area manager, or station masters whim or is it down to my whim?

 

Is there a right and wrong, or is it more of a what you want situation

 

 

Thanks in advance

 

Graham

Edited April 24, 2022 by Moria15

[phil_sutters]

Looking at photos of stations in Somerset in the 1920s & 30s, the most frequent siting seems to have been on fences. There are however examples of adverts on station buildings. Prominence was given to railway notices and posters, but signs for national commodities like Van Houtens chocolate sometimes appear above the railways boards. There seems to have been a mixture of local and national companies' adverts. If it helps I can scan a few images and PM them to you. I have only looked in a couple of books so I could find more.

Later, looking through a few more books, some stations seem to have had next to no adverts and others quite a lot. There is a photo of Weymouth in 1930 where they seem to have crammed adverts into an amazing number of places on the station buildings' walls.

Edited April 24, 2022 by phil_sutters

[Wheatley]

Have a read of this from page 17 onwards, you don't need to be logged in. https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1846&start=400

[Moria15]

2 hours ago, Wheatley said:

Have a read of this from page 17 onwards, you don't need to be logged in. https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1846&start=400

Thanks so much, that's an awesome resource for me.

 

Looks Like I need to add some battens foirst to  my goods shed though

 

Graham

[Michael Hodgson]

Some of the photos of bigger stations in late Victorian/Edwardian days show some of them absolutely plastered in such signs.  so I can't believe there were any planning restrictions on them, I think the railways must have accepted them anywhere they could fit them in to maximise revenue, but that have varied between companies.    Traders would realise that more potential customers see their ads at the busiest places, so I suspect a higher fee might be commercially justified than at minor wayside villages.  I assume that the rural advertising space would have been sold centrally as a bulk deal for the whole line.  I do wonder whether there would be recurring annual fees, and if signs got taken down if not fees renewed - but if so, how come so many obsolete ads have survived?

[Cwmtwrch]

7 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Some of the photos of bigger stations in late Victorian/Edwardian days show some of them absolutely plastered in such signs. 

By the 1930s the number of enamel signs would have been reducing, and the number of poster boards of various sizes would have been increasing; by the BR period enamel signs were pretty much out of use. Posters were both cheaper and more flexible, and some stations, such as Kingsbridge, were given 10ft (height) x 6ft 8ins (width) poster boards on their approach roads. Poster sizes, incidentally, were standardised, commercial advertising posters  generally were multiples of 2ft 6ins x 1ft 8ins, up to 10ft x 20ft, but the railways own posters were 40ins x 25ins or 40ins x 50ins.

[Wheatley]

From the conversation linked above, they were gradually replaced with posters from the 1930s, the last to disappear were the VIROL ones in 1958 when the contract finally expired. Anything surviving after that had been forgotten about !

[Michael Hodgson]

I can't help wondering how the process worked and what contractual terms were usual.  No doubt the enamel plates arrived by train and got unloaded by a porter so somebody had to do something to get them out of the way.  The stationmaster presumably got a missive from Head Office telling him to put them up somewhere.  But would he incur the expense of employing some local handyman?  Would some tradesman employed by the Commercial department travel out specially - perhaps a day out on the cushions with a tool bag, stopping at all stations?  Or would he just tell a porter to fasten it to the wall when there wasn't any proper railway work to do?  Was such DIY within the skill set/implied terms of employment for railwaymen of the period?

 

Taking down the obsolete ones would no doubt be more casual as there was no real commerical incentive.

 

Enamel plates are built for a long life - would the contract be for (say) 10 or 20 years?  Was there some provision to protect the advertiser's interests if the railway decided to replace the station with a new one half a mile away?  Would there be terms specifying how prominently your ad was sited or whether it could be sited next to a competitor's sign?  Would advertisers verify that their signs had been put up?

 

[The Johnster]

Good background info for signs at Cwmdimbath, period 1948-58.  Maybe a Virol or two and the rest posters or empty poster boards.