According to "Midland Style" from the Historical Model Railway Society (published 1975 and 1978, ISBN 0 902835 02 5) the MR shed codes were introduced in 1898 and were a one or two-digit number on a tablet fitted in various locations over the years - by 1909 the lower part of the smokebox door was the usual location.
SR used 2- or 3-letter codes which BRDatabase has for 1948 allocations.
Any particular depot you can evidence?
I can't comment on that aspect. I would like to think someone has misunderstood the use of 'old' style items. In my time on the job, many people had a very real pride in working at certain locations, and despite said places having passed in to history, and those who worked there having either done likewise, or at least been long retired - as am I - there is still pride amongst some for having been associated with certain locations. I have acquaintances to this day who were on the shovel at the likes of Feltham and Nine Elms, and having even a distant connection to the people who worked there, gives me some pride at having worked on the same patch, even if not at those specific locations - closed just before I joined ! In more recent times a couple of our (SWD) depots had stickers and badges made up, sometimes in association with public open days but also for the staff in relation to types of traction they worked on.
Thankyou, but that wasn't quite what I was after. When the railways were nationalised, they had to renumber the steam locos otherwise there was the potential for many cases of 4 locos having the same number. They got round this by adding 30000 to SR loco numbers, 40000 to LMS loco numbers, etc, but left GW loco numbers as was. I was just wondering if, when they grouped the railways, the LMS did something similar to the shed codes they inherited, and left one member railway alone (for example Midland Railway), then attached the other member railways with a similar style of shed codes. That way Plaistow could have been 13A from either 1912 when it was bought by the Midland, or 1923, the time of grouping - the question is which? If the answer is 1912, there is the possibility of it being pre-1912, but, with only 4 sheds, I doubt the LTSR would have called it 13A so that is unlikely to the point of impossible.
I'm sure there are lists of shed codes around - probably some on line (Google is your friend). But it's worth pointing out that - particularly with the LMS/BR system which reflected motive power department organisation - there were a lot of changes over the years, as reorganisations and regional boundary changes happened.
According to P.218 of the Feb 1932 edition of RO, Newton Heath had the code C1. While I was browsing through other issues I found that Derby had the code M1. The use of suffix letters seemed to used solely for sub-sheds, e.g. Skipton was M30 while Hellifield was M30A.
| 75A | 1950–1973 | Brighton Sub-sheds Eastbourne (1952–1965), Horsham (1959–1964), Newhaven (to 1955), Three Bridges (1964–1965), Tunbridge Wells West (1963–1965) | Became BI |
| 75B | 1950–1965 | Redhill Sub-sheds Tunbridge Wells West (1965) | Became sub-shed of 73C |
| 75C | 1950–1966 | Norwood Junction | |
| 1966–1973 | Selhurst | Became SU | |
| 75D | 1950–1959 | Horsham | Became sub-shed of 75A |
| 1962–1973 | Stewarts Lane | Previously 73A, became SL | |
| 75E | 1950–1964 | Three Bridges | Became sub-shed of 75A |
| 75F | 1950–1963 | Tunbridge Wells West | Became sub-shed of 75A, later 75B and finally shed TW under TOPS. Now used by Spa Valley Railway |
| 75G | 1950–1952 | Eastbourne | Became sub-shed of 75A |
I think the GWR locos were not renumbered because it would be expensive to replace all the cabside brass number plates. Replacing iron smokebox number plates on other (non-GWR) locos would be less costly - and for cabside number, you just needed a "number" transfer or a paint brush..
I often wondered about 81A. Thank you.
Quickly looking randomly at a 1932 issue of RO, KX was indeed used for Kings Cross but all other depots seemed to have 3-letter codes, e.g. IMM - Immingham, NOR - Norwich, CAM - Cambridge, RET - Retford. In the same issue for GWR codes there's PDN for Old Oak Common (as mentioned in an earlier post) and while the codes generally seem to have 3 letters (e.g. RDG - Reading, TYS - Tyseley), Newton Abbot is NA.
I'm surprsied no-one thought of renumbering (using painted numbers) as an excuse for relaising the scrap value of over 7,500 numberplates
No chance of that whilst Western Region acted as if it was still independent for many years after BR was created. (Why else did it get diesel hydraulic locos rather than diesel electric ??)
Do you happen to know what the LNER code was for Gateshead? GAT?
I've not seen a GAT code but I have seen GHD which I assume is Gateshead.
Yes, although these were grouped by operating divisions, the shed codes in GWR times just being abbreviations of each name before BR structured them into LMS-type codes. Pre-1923 there were seven divisions, then the South Wales valley companies made 8, and the Cambrian made 9, hence shed groups 81 to 89. They aligned with working timetables, and to quite some extent with traditional public timetable tables as well. GWR Loco allocations were by physical location, not necessarily a formal shed, which required a Loco Foreman (shedmaster in BR terms); locations could be quite small branch-end points, where admin jobs like coal records were just done by the senior driver. The Loco Foreman would be the only staff member at the shed who wore a suit, albeit pretty well coal-impregnated.
Very coincidentally I've just found a complete list of GWR number and letter codes in RO and I was about to post about it! The list can be found on pages 58 & 59 of the April 1935 edition (vol 7, no 74). The following link should open up the PDF of the issue for anyone who's registered (free of charge) on the RCTS site:
Right at the end of steam at Colwick they used to paint "COLK" on the smoke box door rather than use the shedcode (let alone a shedplate). I thought it looked terrible!
