PRE-NATIONALISATION EQUIPMENT ON BR

[Czesziafan]

This is my first post here so please excuse any inadvertent errors.

I have been collecting small items of railwayana for the last 30 or more years. What I would like to ask is: how long did pre-nationalisation guards' carriage keys and whistles survive into BR days? Was anyone who began working on the railways in the 60's and 70's issued with a whistle or key marked with the initials of one of the Big 4?

 

[thecrofter]

I started with BR in 1972 on what was the London Midland Region and everything I was issued with (or obtained by other means!) was marked BR (M). Maybe I was unlucky but I never got to have anything with any of the Big Four inscriptions if that helps.

 

[Czesziafan]

That's interesting. I would have expected most pre-nat personal equipment had been retired by the early 70's. I believe that at some stage in the early 70's an edict went out from on high telling local BR management to send all obsolete equipment to the BR Stores Controller at Collectors Corner, which opened in1970.There was also a vast stock of old restaurant car china and cutlery in the St Pancras vaults, some of which dated from pre-grouping days. I think that was all auctioned off in the early '80's, probably at the time when British Transport Hotels, who owned it, was sold.

 

[36270k]

LMS and LNER guards pocket watches were still in use in the early 80's

 

[pdeaves]

In the 1990s the College of Rail Technology (formerly Railway Engineering School, formerly BR School of Transport, formerly LMS School of Transport) in Derby still had LMS SoT cutlery in the dining areas. When did the SoT open? If pre-1923 I wouldn't be surprised if there was still Midland Railway cutlery in use (just looked it up; no, it was built in 1938). The school closed in 2007; I really, really hope that such items didn't just get dumped in a skip!

 

[Czesziafan]

LMS and LNER guards pocket watches were still in use in the early 80's

LMS and LNER guards pocket watches were still in use in the early 80's

I have heard of GWR pocket watches also still in use in the seventies. indeed the BR(W) version is considered somewhat rarer than GWR. Watches were expensive and I suppose that so long as they worked they remained in use.