Garden Railway Forum

This was bought for me recently as a birthday present and interested if anyone can supply additional information of when it might of been produced, where it was used on the BR network, etc (I did ask the cat but he didn't have anything useful to say other than meow):


I like the idea of having this outside, can I paint it using Hammerite or does it need stripping back?

Tom,
My first thought on seeing your pic, was "Doesn't it have an ID stamped on it somewhere?" but I'm sure you would have looked!

Anyway out of curiosity I've had a look around and found this on ebay. It looks identical to me, from the photos, and is indeed stamped BR(W) on the chimney.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RAILWAY-TAIL ... SwqctchRlI

Don't know if this helps? I suspect the same lamp would have been used on other regions and branded accordingly, but thats just a guess.

I did look for some kind of marking or stamp before posting but couldn't find one or it's corroded away and not visible.

It looks very much like a BR brake van lamp.

I have an identical one painted white which I suspect yours is under all the grime, mine is also embossed BR(W) on the chimney and has no other identifying marks that I have been able to find. I bought it from the railwayana shop at Quainton in the early 1980s and from memory it cost me £9 along with an enamelled "Platform 5" sign. Those were the days for sensible prices for railwayana, I've now given up collecting as the prices asked are often ludicrous to say the least. As a point of interest yours is missing the oil tank/burner assembly but these do appear on Ebay from time to time.

Rather than Hammerite paint you could just give it a good scrub and then wipe it over with furniture polish, this will preserve its patina.

I have an old roadworks lamp, that is also missing its burner, I put one of those flickering LED tealights in that runs continuously for 5-6 days before the batteries need changing, I was going to cannibalise a solar light, but it hasn't seemed worth it..

That's very nice...

Yes, I'd agree that it could of the BR era - I've also got one stamped BR on the top bit. Mine's black, and is of the type that went on the side of a van, showing a clear aspect forwards and a red one to the rear. Let me know if you find a source of lamp brackets to put the thing up...

Mine's in working order (I bought it c30 years ago, which probably helps!) but I never use it, the family aren't too keen on the fumes (!) - the flickering tealight is a great idea, thanks Boris!

Cheers,

Andrew.

Hi Tom,

The others are correct, it's a standard BR tail lamp. They were generally painted white but some of those used on freights seemed to manage to appear in black. As Andrew has already pointed out, some sidelamps were also black, whilst others were white. There's a good reason why one sidelamp might have been black and one white but painting tail lamps black always stuck me as a daft idea. After all, Signalmen were expected to pick them out on the back of a train in swirling steam and smoke, possibly four or more roads away, in poor light and that's before we get onto the subject of mist and fog! Signalmen don't just like white because it the colour of the levers they don't have to bother with!

I think this type of lamp began to appear from the mid to late fifties and survived right up to the advent of the flashing battery taillamps we are blinded by today! Early ones seemed to be stamped with regional identification as suggested but later ones seemed to just have BR or nothing at all.

Hope that helps,

Andrew

Thanks for the info guys.