The LNER Encyclopedia

A few weeks back guys I bought a superannuated 1940's small bench lathe off a farmer. The bench was very unusal in having bow legs which where bolted on to it. The legs being made up of a cast looking black material and very heavy. I paid peanuts as I needed the old lathe for a client.

Anyway I unbolted the legs and once back to base started cutting the becn for scrap as I had bought it for the small lathe.

Some material fell away from the legs, leaving what looked like a name so I chipped away at the dross which turned out to be tar, paint, piles rust and grime.

My eyes couldn't believe what I was seeing the plates are marked 1472, Batch 1564 Crimpsall GNR! The GNR bit was very suprising, I don't have to tell you the name that was revealed on the plates. The plates are cast iron or steel and weigh a ton. I have undercoated them, but the lettering has been painted at sometime, how do I restored the metal areas that should be polished???

I had to double check the date in case this was an april fool; if these things are genuine then they will be worth a fortune. Until their provenance is proven one way or the other, you should not try polishing or painting them as this could reduce their value, you should lock them away behind a very strong door!

The lettering on those nameplates looks like Gill Sans to me, similar to the style used on the last batch of A3s. That suggests 1930s to me rather than GNR/LNER. The nameplates used on the Gresley Pacifics had much thinner letters.

I will lock them away for now guys in a very, very safe place. The plates have been extremely lucky, I was going to gas axe them when I cut the bench up, I only wanted the lathe which was bolted to the bench. If I hadn't have hit the legs hard by accident when loading onto the truck the dirt and gunk wouldn't have fallen off and a part of letter wouldn't have been revealed leading to me chipping away with hammer and chisel. I would have put the gas axe through them.

The general opinions I have encountered so far is that they are either plates made by the GNR during the changeover to the LNER and were never carried on the loco for some reason perhaps a change of mind on the letter style of the plate, or are Donny works apprentice pieces or are very early replica's. Either way they are a very nice find.

SuperA410000 wrote:The general opinions I have encountered so far is that they are either plates made by the GNR during the changeover to the LNER and were never carried on the loco for some reason perhaps a change of mind on the letter style of the plate, or are Donny works apprentice pieces or are very early replica's. Either way they are a very nice find.

They are modern fakes, compare them with the original. Note the different typefaces, the rounded inner corners of the original and the absence of beading on the lower edge.

I think you're right, Bill. Note the heavily seriffed G in FLYING in Super's pics. There's no serif on the original. Also, the letterspacing is shoddy and of a less condensed face than the original, plus the original's lettering is a tad bolder, too.

In the lower picture there's a nice example of a well-known optical illusion. The plate at the top looks much shorter than the one below it. Of course, whoever made them just might have wanted different lengths.