Southern Railway waterman armband query

[32475]

I noticed online that the Bluebell Railway have this yellow armband in their collection but want to know more about it and indeed if it’s from the old UK Southern Railway or from overseas.
Knowledgeable information welcome!

 

[Merle Haggard]

I noticed online that the Bluebell Railway have this yellow armband in their collection but want to know more about it and indeed if it’s from the old UK Southern Railway or from overseas.
Knowledgeable information welcome!
View attachment 150115

The Southern Railway of the USA was unusual (unique?) in using 'railway' rather than 'railroad' in its title. Looking at Wiki the armband does seem to be very similar in colour and type face to the U.S. one.
Probably someone got miss-led at a railwayana auction - not unusual

 

[Ashley Hill]

The lettering doesn’t look right to be (the English) Southern Railway.

 

[Rescars]

What might have been the duties of a "Water Man" I wonder, and why would he need to wear an armband?

 

[Taunton]

The Southern Railway of the USA was unusual (unique?) in using 'railway' rather than 'railroad' in its title. Looking at Wiki the armband does seem to be very similar in colour and type face to the U.S. one.

Not unusual at all in the USA. Over the years it was a periodic event that a company constituted as a Railroad would go bankrupt, and needing to come back under a different legal name would do so with the same general name but ending Railway instead of Railroad. There were some in this circumstance went the other way as well. Of the five regional lines which in the 1890s consolidated to form the Southern, I believe three were Railroads and two were Railways.

The current successor, the mainstream Norfolk Southern, is a Railway rather than a Railroad, although above it in its business structure is the Norfolk Southern Corporation. It's other principal constituent, the Norfolk & Western, was a Railway as well.

The term Water Boy was considerably used in the USA for the labourer who took refreshment, just water, out to those working in the open, whether on farms or the railway. Inevitably, especially where the Southern ran, most were African Americans. As the term Boy for these men, of all ages and quite often elderly, became unacceptable, the change has been made.

 

[32475]

Many thanks for everyone’s comments. Certainly the use of serif lettering would be different from anything else the SR produced to my knowledge.
Also I’d never really appreciated the unusual US use of railway instead of railroad until now.