The Bristol Railway Archive

That has started me thinking about the physical reallocation of locos. I wonder on average how soon a depot's new acquisition actually arrived at its new home and how soon the cast shed plate was physically changed. Not expecting a definitive answer.

In blue era diesel days, on the bodyside we affixed a sticky back blue label with the two digit depot code e.g. BR for Bath Road. I have no recollection as to how it was flagged up to be done or who actually did it. Logic says that it would be when the loco came in for its first maintenance exam but that is purely a guess.

Roy

I left posting a reply for a week in case anyone who actually knew the answer came along. As they havenÔÇÖt I will add my own speculation.

In pre-TOPS days (so thatÔÇÖs prior to c.1974) the only method of knowing which depot a locomotive was allocated to would have been the by its shed plate. It would therefore make sense to affix it at the earliest possible opportunity, probably on arrival.

Prudence would dictate that any new arrival would have at least a cursory inspection to make sure it was fit for service, and such an inspection would have been carried out by the Workshop staff at the depot, with the shedplate being fitted by either a fitter or a fitterÔÇÖs mate (depending on who won the demarcation dispute!)

I appreciate we have wandered completely off at a tangent here but let's take this discussion a step further.

When a loco disappeared off to Swindon Works for overhaul, I'm wondering if a replacement loco was slotted in to make up the allocation. And when the original loco was released from Works overhaul, did it go back to its previous depot or elsewhere, in effect, shuffling around to maintain numbers. I am talking here about what I would refer to as general purpose locos such as Halls and pannier tanks rather than the smaller classes which had specific duties. I suspect there will not be a definitive answer as I am sure some locos stayed at the same depot for many years.

The only way I can think of to research this easily would be the Irwell Press 'Book of....' series which I believe lists overhaul dates and shed allocations. Unfortunately, I cannot access mine at the moment as they all went into storage while I 'reallocated' myself to another county. I'm now a Western Region interloper on the Southern Region.

Of course, during the 1980's many loco and HST power cars stopped going off to Works for overhaul as we adopted the Level 5 Component Exchange Maintenance model where major components like power units and bogies were supplied to nominated depots to be swapped over.

Roy

The problem when threads go this far off topic is that there is no guarantee that the target readership (for want of a better term!) will see it if they have no particular interest in the Kingswood Juntion to Montpelier line, as they might simply not open the thread

As I find this a very interestng discussion topic, I will reply on a new thread.