SR classes

[Nearholmer]

Yes, those souls like aircraft registrations; not properly railwaylike at all.

 

More seriously, the individual loco number is of profound importance to whoever has to maintain it, even if not to ‘traffic’.

[Nearholmer]

18 hours ago, JimC said:

Holcroft tells us that he kept diaries in his Southern days.

Most engineers kept a “day book”, indeed many still do, even now that software systems rule everything, in which a lot of engineering detail, notes of meetings etc.,  gets jotted down along the way. I was not particularly assiduous with mine, but I still ended-up with donkeys years of them, which I threw away when I ceased to work full-time, and by habit I started a new series covering part-time work since. Mega-useful when you want to check what you discussed with whom and when, and why, and look at the sketch diagrams you used.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Oldddudders]

4 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

I think it was the Saxon railway adminstration that gave its loco classes Roman numeral designations, at least we haven't had numbering systems using them, nor computer based numbers using binary, though wasn't there a scheme suggested to apply bar code numbers to locos so they could be read by trackside scanners (probably an April Fool spoof iirc)?

Yes, a Saxon IVk was and remains a thing of beauty. 

 

Apart from the US implementation of barcoded rolling stock, it was being looked at as a concept in NSE. I recall being asked about it at interview for a senior Sub-sector post. Monitoring of rolling stock mileages etc to enable correct exam and maintenance periodicities will always be required.

[Artless Bodger]

5 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Yes, a Saxon IVk was and remains a thing of beauty. 

 

Apart from the US implementation of barcoded rolling stock, it was being looked at as a concept in NSE. I recall being asked about it at interview for a senior Sub-sector post. Monitoring of rolling stock mileages etc to enable correct exam and maintenance periodicities will always be required.

Agreed, while the Saxon XV HTV was not, but might appeal to those of us who like the Q1.

[kevinlms]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Or even some more memorable names!

What would the Midland know about that! OK, there were a few names, but generally the Midland declined to name their locos.

[jim.snowdon]

5 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Apart from the US implementation of barcoded rolling stock, it was being looked at as a concept in NSE. I recall being asked about it at interview for a senior Sub-sector post. Monitoring of rolling stock mileages etc to enable correct exam and maintenance periodicities will always be required.

It's now becoming normal for units to be fitted with RFID tags so that they can be 'clocked' as they come on and off depot and maintenance information downloaded automatically.

 

[rogerzilla]

6 hours ago, kevinlms said:

What would the Midland know about that! OK, there were a few names, but generally the Midland declined to name their locos.

I think it was Maunsell who responded to proposals for naming the King Arthurs with something like "sure, but don't expect it to make them to go any better!". 

 

It sounds a lot like a Churchward quote, but GWR locos had names from the very beginning.

[The Lurker]

16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Once a thing was “written off”, so no longer on the capital account, it’s value (however residual and small) didn’t have to be totted-up, and I wonder whether there were tax advantages in keeping the value of the capital assets as low as possible, although I doubt it because barely anything was taxed in C19th compared with now.
 

 

Prior to 1965, there was no capital gains tax in the UK, so there was always a drive to treat items of income as capital in nature so that they were not taxed. Conversely, items of expenditure were treated as revenue in nature where possible because you got a deduction against income tax (provided that the expenditure was wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of the trade).

 

Tax case law spent a lot of time deciding what was capital and what was revenue, and if something was a capital item, such as a locomotive, there was no tax deduction available. This changed in 1878 (per HMRC's own capital allowances manual) when a "wear and tear" allowance was introduced for items of plant and machinery. This gave a deduction similar to the depreciation going through the books - so an item of plant or machinery would have had tax deductions equal to its original cost spread over the years it was estimated to be revenue producing. locomotives would have been classified as plant and machinery (not a "no brainer"; horses were also plant and machinery and were technically until well into the 20th century). I have no idea what the agreed life for a locomotive would have been.

 

There was also a repairs and renewals allowance, which acted along side normal tax deductions for repairs. It was I think abolished in the early 90s but I seem to recall you had the choice to claim a deduction for a repair (as long as there was no element of improvement) or you could have a codified deduction which you built up annually where you knew you would have a large pool of small items that would be regularly replaced but where you did not want to keep a track of each item in your tax return. By the time I started in tax, few companies used the repairs and renewals allowance and it was abolished - I think I saw it in half a dozen companies over the early years of my career and had long forgotten it.

 

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-allowances-manual/ca10040

 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

Prior to 1965, there was no capital gains tax in the UK, so there was always a drive to treat items of income as capital in nature so that they were not taxed. Conversely, items of expenditure were treated as revenue in nature where possible because you got a deduction against income tax (provided that the expenditure was wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of the trade).

 

Thank you, that helps a good deal. As I understand it, before 1965 companies were treated on the same footing a individuals and paid income tax at the usual rates? How did that work? My understanding is that dividends were treated on the same footing as any other income, as far as individual shareholders were concerned, so there must have been a mechanism to avoid double taxation on the company's profits?

 

Was there any difference between an incorporated company such as railway companies were and a limited company?

[62613]

36 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

Prior to 1965, there was no capital gains tax in the UK, so there was always a drive to treat items of income as capital in nature so that they were not taxed. Conversely, items of expenditure were treated as revenue in nature where possible because you got a deduction against income tax (provided that the expenditure was wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purposes of the trade).

 

Tax case law spent a lot of time deciding what was capital and what was revenue, and if something was a capital item, such as a locomotive, there was no tax deduction available. This changed in 1878 (per HMRC's own capital allowances manual) when a "wear and tear" allowance was introduced for items of plant and machinery. This gave a deduction similar to the depreciation going through the books - so an item of plant or machinery would have had tax deductions equal to its original cost spread over the years it was estimated to be revenue producing. locomotives would have been classified as plant and machinery (not a "no brainer"; horses were also plant and machinery and were technically until well into the 20th century). I have no idea what the agreed life for a locomotive would have been.

 

 

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-allowances-manual/ca10040

 

I saw figures mentioned in an early 2000s Backtrack of 30 years for a passenger loco, 40 for a mixed traffic type, and 50 years for a goods or mineral engine. Which seems to agree with several class withdrawal dates.

 

[62613]

Of course, if we're going way off topic on numbering, there was the case of the G.E.R. Clauds, which started at 1900, for what sounded like a good reason at the time, and ran backwards to about 1780

[kevinlms]

37 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Of course, if we're going way off topic on numbering, there was the case of the G.E.R. Clauds, which started at 1900, for what sounded like a good reason at the time, and ran backwards to about 1780

The first one was numbered 1900, because it had been suggested as such, as it represented the new century. Since there was a lot of gaps, the GER went backwards!

Not fixed until the 1946 numbers.

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Thank you, that helps a good deal. As I understand it, before 1965 companies were treated on the same footing a individuals and paid income tax at the usual rates? How did that work? My understanding is that dividends were treated on the same footing as any other income, as far as individual shareholders were concerned, so there must have been a mechanism to avoid double taxation on the company's profits?

 

Was there any difference between an incorporated company such as railway companies were and a limited company?

My understanding is that companies were taxed in the same way as unincorporated businesses, on the preceding year basis - the tax you paid related to the accounts for the year that ended in the previous tax year (to 5 April). This changed from 1965 for companies but not until many years later for unincorporated businesses. Until the introduction of Corporation Tax Pay and File in 1991, pre-1965 companies retained the payment date that they had under income tax rules, which meant that some companies with a 30 April year end deferred any tax payments for almost 2 years. Because groups were allowed to use the date that applied to their parent company there were tales of a multinational that had purchased a cornershop with a 30 April year end, reversed into it (ie made it the top co of the group) and deferred tax payments considerably.

 

As for dividends I believe that the UK operated a "classical" system in which companies and their shareholders were regarded as totally separate and the profits of the company were taxed twice, once in the companies hands and once in the hands of the shareholders when they received their dividends. Owners of unincorporated businesses were taxed on the whole of the business' profits  regardless of whether profits were "retained" by the business; they still are.

 

In the 1970s the system changed and companies paid "Advance Corporation Tax" which franked the dividend in their shareholders' hands (and if you were a non-taxpayer like a pension fund could lead to a repayment of tax credits). These days individuals are taxed on dividends but not quite at the top marginal rate - the difference is a hangover from the days when there was credit to frank the income.

 

Anyway,, we have digressed a long from the SR class system!

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

Anyway,, we have digressed a long from the SR class system!

 

But thanks, nevertheless!

[rogerzilla]

I started the topic and it's all good stuff as far as I'm concerned.

 

A TOPS refinement I only found about recently is that the TOPS number for steam engines includes the old LMS/BR power classification.  Presumably only the "P" one, if the "F" one was different.

Edited June 24, 2022 by rogerzilla

[kevinlms]

31 minutes ago, rogerzilla said:

I started the topic and it's all good stuff as far as I'm concerned.

 

A TOPS refinement I only found about recently is that the TOPS number for steam engines includes the old LMS/BR power classification.  Presumably only the "P" one, if the "F" one was different.

So it does, except the 'F' classification is used for freight locos, such as 8F's and the S&DJR 7F.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_98#List_of_locomotives_assigned_TOPS_numbers

[Nearholmer]

How about that!

 

In the unlikely event that I’m ever again invited to a dinner party, I shall dazzle my table companions with my erudition by alluding to this.

[62613]

8 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The first one was numbered 1900, because it had been suggested as such, as it represented the new century. Since there was a lot of gaps, the GER went backwards!

Not fixed until the 1946 numbers.

I know

 

[rogerzilla]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

How about that!

 

In the unlikely event that I’m ever again invited to a dinner party, I shall dazzle my table companions with my erudition by alluding to this.

It will certainly guarantee no more party invites thereafter!