Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles by Maxwell Craven
Railway Locomotive Name Plates
Last year we had a whole bunch of railwayana through
Bamfords , mainly authentic relics of the great age of travel , but amongst them the nameplate of a locomotive built by the Southern Railway just after the Second World War and known to enthusiasts ( in my time at least ) as a ‘ spam can ’. These were large mixed traffic semistreamlined engines , partly called after places in the West Country ( where they were intended to serve ) and partly after matters connected with the Battle of Britain and destined for service in Kent . The particular item was Battle of Britain Winston Churchill – the very locomotive which had pulled the late prime minister ’ s funeral train to Bladon , Oxfordshire , where he was buried . I am old enough to recall seeing it ( despite poor reception in mountainous North Wales ) on a black-and-white TV that January day in 1965 .
Above : Nameplate from Mallard , at York Railway Museum . [ NRM York ]
Below : Repainting the real thing at the National Railway Museum , York : Winston Churchill ’ s nameplate and armorial . [ NRM York ]
Such was the fame of this relatively short-lived machine that I knew that what we had was a full sized replica , and it duly sold for a couple of hundred pounds ( non-replica ) money , as it were . There are plenty of these around , although a new replica can cost you quite a bit more . Look out for one of the initial locomotive of the ‘ Lord Nelson ’ class ( SR again ) and you ’ ll have to shell out £ 790 for a solid brass copy in full size .
But it got me thinking . If you can pay nearly £ 800 for a replica of a nameplate of a famous – say an ‘ iconic ’ – locomotive , what might the cost of an original be ?
Locomotives have borne names ever since Rocket and its rivals vied for supremacy at the Rainhill trials in 1829 , so there are nominally a lot around . Yet 19th century survivals are fantastically rare most , sadly , were scrapped with the time-expired bearers of the name . Nearly everything now available for sale comes from the last generation of steam locomotives ( I leave aside nameplates from diesel and electric locomotives : they are less sought after , usually of less good quality materials and commoner , despite still making relatively good money ). Most engines with names were express passenger ones of various sizes . The handsomest were those on the locomotives of the old Great Western , cast in brass on heavy plates , often curved to fit over a wheel splasher . Modest Cobham Hall fetched £ 5,800 in 2010 . Other companies used steel ones , usually smaller , although the Southern Railway did brass ones until the war .
Rarity is often an indicator of price , so one works out the number of a
particular class of engines built and multiplies the total by two ( there being a name plate on either side of the engine ). Thus Derbyshire-born Sir Nigel Gresley designed the not particularly memorable ‘ Hunt ’ & ‘ Shire ’ class of 4-4-0 locomotives in the 1920s . The LNER built forty two of them , meaning there must have been 84 nameplates , mainly counties but also names of particular Hunts . I recall sitting with my father around 1961 when we learnt from his newspaper that British Railways were scrapping these engines and , by applying to BR one could acquire a nameplate of one ’ s choice for about £ 75 – scrap value plus cartage . As one of these machines had been called The Craven , I urged Papa to put in an offer for it , but when they told him the price ( which in retrospect he could well have afforded ) he demurred . Yet it would have made a splendid investment today , 57 years later , for one sold not so long ago for £ 15,100 !
Another reason for them being scarcer than they are is that many were presented by BR to the institutions after which the engine had taken its name . Thus many ‘ Battle of Britain ’ class engines had their squadron number nameplates with their accompanying badges , enamelled onto a large attached oval , were presented to the relevant squadron HQs . Football clubs whose names had adorned LNER B17 class engines were presented with the relevant plates , and to all sort of stately homes received plates from Great Western Railway ‘ Castle ’, ‘ Hall ’, ‘ Manor ’ and ‘ Grange ’ class locomotives ..
But to acquire these wonderful items , one requires fantastically deep pockets . Top price to date was a sister engine of world speed record breaking Mallard , called Golden Fleece . One plate alone went for £ 60,000 in
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