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Apparently, when Rev. Awdry was asked why so many churchmen are interested in railways, he replied that British railways and the Church had several things in common: they were both large organisations, subject to much criticism, and each one thought it had the best means of getting customers to their destinations. David Potter, The Talyllyn Railway (1990), p.197.

In olden tymes the Mid-Hants line stations had a peculiar arrangement of advanced starters but no outer homes (down direction only at Medstead). I've never been able to find a convincing explanation for this. I can only assume that it was to facilitate shunting onto the single line in conjunction with Tyers no. 3 (non-returnable) tablet instruments - presumably the advance starter was the section signal and locked by the tablet. The present administration has installed outer homes and advanced starters at all stations except Medstead, where this is impractical due to the gradients either side of the station.

All Gas & Gaiters! How could those of us of a certain age forget William Mervyn (later the Old Gentleman in The Railway Children) as the Bishop and Derek Nimmo (of course) as his long-suffering chaplain with a comedic stutter? As it happens I picked up a DVD set of the series secondhand at the Medstead village fête last year - very nostalgic. Also Oh Brother, starring Nimmo as a monk with a northern accent. I was surprised to find that this was not a follow-up to AG&G, as I think we had all assumed, but was a separate project originally intended as a vehicle for Harry Secombe. I'm not sure how that would have worked as one of the running gags was that Nimmo's character couldn't sing (which Secombe certainly could).

Quite a lot to catch up on here. First, on the subject of poster headers, I drew my conclusion on the basis, first that survivals with round-ended lettering tend to be rather more faded and battered than the (very few) survivors of the pointy-ended version and, second, that the pointy-ended version (a technical term) was certainly used on posters in the 30s and 40s. There are many more survivals of the round-ended version but I put this down to their having become near-universal early on and not needing replacement until after nationalisation. If anyone can shed any more light on this I'd be very interested. On the green colour, early SR signs do tend to be bluer than later ones but I think this may be partly due to fading. I have certainly seen an early doorplate which has faded to a washed-out grey green colour. I think the intention was to replicate the SR no.1 green paint shade used on buildings before the War. The post -War BS equivalent of this was Lincoln Green (shade 276 of BS381c) - the old London Transport country bus colour - but with different media and paint mixed from raw ingredients there must have been quite a lot of variation in practice. SR totems etc came in two distinct shades. Post 1948 they were a dark green similar to the SR shade but following the 1956 corporate image revamp they changed to a much lighter green. Presumably this was intended to replicate the SR no. 1A green paint shade used on buildings after the War and perpetuated by BR as Brilliant Green (shade 221 of BS381c). I do like SEM34090's generic SR alphabet. It looks pretty good to me. The Medstead totem takes its cue from the replicas currently in place at the station but for some reason these used the short version of the totem - the originals were longer. This was a fairly late example - 1937 - with a lighter weight of lettering, as you can see. (An original surfaced in a railwayana auction a few years ago. I missed it! Grrr...)

Good morning afternoon, campers! Seeing this topic has finally persuaded me (after a long career as a lurker) to set up a username so that I can contribute something on station signs (not loco and rolling stock insignia, about which I know very little). First, with apologies, I'm going to refer this thread to Pedant's Corner. A printer's typeface is a family of type of a particular design. In metal typesetting, a font was a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. (Thanks Mr. Google.) Over the years I've amassed quite a collection of images and dimensions of SR enamel station signs. The staff of some well-known heritage railways probably thought I was casing the joint, but there was some method in it as I was aiming to get some replica signs made. I quickly concluded that the lettering style used by the SR for its enamel station signs had been nowhere near a competent typographer. Many of the proportions look rather odd compared with, say, Johnson or Gill Sans - the R referred to by Nearholmer is a case in point - and there is considerable variation in detail between examples and between manufacturers (there were several). As a general rule the weight seems to have become lighter as time went on. The patterns for the individual signs will have been made by hand and my best guess is that they started off by replicating signwriting practice, possibly from a pattern book. The pointy ends were probably easier to cut out. The SR muddied the waters after WW2 by producing some 18" x 6" dished door plates with a much finer, nearly-but-not-quite-Gill-Sans, version of the style. These are frequently mis-described as BR plates by the railwayana trade. There were a couple of exceptions to the general rule. First, there was an early, very heavy version of the lettering with squared off ends. This is not common but the Bluebell has a couple of examples from West Hoathly on display. Second, enamel poster headers used an outlined version which initially had rounded ends but later (probably in the 1930s) changed to pointy ends. This was also used for the "Southern Railway" title on posters. I hope that's of some help. The best advice I can offer to anyone trying to model these signs is to find an original which dates from about the time you're interested in and copy that. Heritage railways are a good source of inspiration but beware! There are a lot of modern replica signs about which may introduce their own little variations...