Coltishall Gate Guards and associated Items

XW563s new resting place

Other images and story at the following link

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/index.cfm?storyid=63319DD6-1143-EC82-2E106AF2C0778128

In fact there is a very good piece on the RAFM website about the BoB nameplates in their possession and how they aquired them: http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/exhibitions/loco_plates/index.cfm

As you can see they own 18 nameplates (presumably all with their crests/plaques).

The most recent plate and plaque set sold at auction seems to have been ‘601 Squadron’ sold by Sheffield Railway Auctions for £35,000 on 10 March this year, but they sold a loose crest on 16 June for £8,000.

Very interesting, notice they don’t have Spitfire.

You may know this, but anticipating Churchills demise, the Winston Churchill loco was given a complete overhaul and repaint in order to be in a fit state to haul his funeral train, it was then placed in store until needed.
Eventually, in 1965 it hauled the train to Oxfordshire from Waterloo, chosen for it’s riverside access, and after the event, ran light back to London for storage and placing in a museum.
I saw it at York a couple of years ago and it still looked pretty mint after all these years, it must be the only BR loco to survive in its original paintwork.
I have a photo of Blackmore Vale at Eastleigh taken only a few weeks before the end of Southern steam, 40 years ago last week, and it looked a bit grim and devoid of nameplates, trouble is, I can’t find the pic, mustn’t go on, the mods will be after us.

BoB Nameplates in RAFM Collection

In fact there is a very good piece on the RAFM website about the BoB nameplates in their possession and how they aquired them: http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/exhibitions/loco_plates/index.cfm

As you can see they own 18 nameplates (presumably all with their crests/plaques).

The most recent plate and plaque set sold at auction seems to have been ‘601 Squadron’ sold by Sheffield Railway Auctions for £35,000 on 10 March this year, but they sold a loose crest on 16 June for £8,000.

Trust you to come out with an aerial pic of the entrance DB, very cool, the other shots of the current state of the base from REF are very sad, we couldn’t bear going to Norfolk for our hols this year as it would have been too quiet.
Were all 44 or rather 88, BoB class nameplates presented to the RAF then when the locos were withdrawn in the 60’s, less ‘Winston Churchill’ as it’s at York, and if so, where are they all now.
I looked up a previous thread and saw a picture of 6 of them on display at RAF Bentley Priory including what must be the other Hurricane nameplate.
I know that some of these loco’s are running in preservation, in fact, for the summer, ‘Tangmere’ is being disguised as ‘Spitfire’ in conjunction with the Shepherd Neame brewery, but I bet all these plates they carry now are replicas, they are too precious to tempt the screwdriver brigade.

Certainly on the line on which I worked as a volunteer for many years the nameplates were changed for replicas in normal day-to-day use quite a few years back now. Don’t forget that the majority of preserved BoBs came via Barry scrapyard in any case and thus had no non-ferrous fittings left of any nature, let alone nameplates, when they passed into preservation, indeed many had even lost their tenders and consisted of little more than frames, wheelsets, cylinder castings and boilers. ‘Winston Churchill’ (1965) and ‘Blackmoor Vale/Blackmore Vale’ (1967) were the only two Bullied light pacifics to pass directly into preservation.

Where the nameplates went is an interesting question and one worthy of further research. One suspects that the usual thing happened – some were presented by BR, others were claimed by what was then the Museum of British Transport, a lot of others were sold off by BR (officially and unofficially) and a few were pinched. I am pretty sure that I recall seeing quantities of BoB plates in the national collection initially at Clapham and later in York and also at the Canadian National Railway Museum.

For the record the following BoBs have been preserved: 21C151/34051 ‘Winston Churchill’; 21C153/34053 ‘Sir Keith Park’; 21C158/34058 ‘Sir Frederick Pile’; 21C159/34059 ‘Sir Archibald Sinclair’; 21C167/34067 ‘Tangmere’; 21C170/34070 ‘Manston’; 34072 ‘257 Squadron’; 34073 ‘249 Squadron’; and 34081 ’92 Squadron’

I saw “92 Squadron” on the back of a low-loader going through Norwich this week

Trust you to come out with an aerial pic of the entrance DB, very cool, the other shots of the current state of the base from REF are very sad, we couldn’t bear going to Norfolk for our hols this year as it would have been too quiet.
Were all 44 or rather 88, BoB class nameplates presented to the RAF then when the locos were withdrawn in the 60’s, less ‘Winston Churchill’ as it’s at York, and if so, where are they all now.
I looked up a previous thread and saw a picture of 6 of them on display at RAF Bentley Priory including what must be the other Hurricane nameplate.
I know that some of these loco’s are running in preservation, in fact, for the summer, ‘Tangmere’ is being disguised as ‘Spitfire’ in conjunction with the Shepherd Neame brewery, but I bet all these plates they carry now are replicas, they are too precious to tempt the screwdriver brigade.

A few photos from Coltishal from a recent visit on the following link;

http://www.airfields.fotopic.net/c1288528_1.html

Unfortunately I couldn’t get access to the site, if anyone can assist or know who I can write to about getting acces then please let me know.

Richard