Railway Lantern saved.

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Got this nice Old Railway Man Lantern.

Complete but in need of some TLC.

Getting the paint off with paint stripper. This stuff I get from a car body shop. It is a lot better than the stuff in most high street outlets.

Rust removal with Vinegar, citric acid powder and flour.

Correct paint.

Bit of gold leaf.

 

[Vann]

View attachment 168396

Got this nice Old Railway Man Lantern.

Nice. It is a shunters lamp. The red and green lenses, combined with the white light are used by the shunter to signal the enginedriver whether to go, stop, which direction, and how hard.

We had almost identical lanterns here in New Zealand.

When I was an apprentice at the railway workshops there was a guy in the coppersmiths shop who made these in batches of 50, cutting out and shaping all the parts from tinned steel sheet, then soldering them together. With each batch he would also make a couple out of copper and brass sheet. These would get extra attention and would miraculously disappear just as they were nearing completion. I guess they provided him with beer money.

The fonts were filled with colza oil, which burns a little cooler than kerosene. If you used kero there was a chance of melting the solder and having it fall apart just as you were trying to signal the enginedriver to stop.

Towards the 1980s they were replaced with battery powered lamps, and shortly thereafter by two-way radios.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#

Thie history of the lamp is a bit more complicated.

Ir ius stamped BR(sc), so that dates it after 1948. BR phased out steam trains by Aug 1948, by then most oil fired lamps had been replaced by battery lamps. On the trains by DC powered lamps.

The way the glass is held in place, by the 3 flip feet dates it to the 1940's. Made it quicker to replace any broken glass. But having the three glass lens dates it to pre 1938. After that only the red and green was in use. Cut down on the cost.

But the front lens is older than that, but the date can not be verified.


With a lot of help from Steam at Swindon we think it was assembled in the late 1940's to early 1950's.
As a way to quickly produce lanterns to be used by guards, shunters and in the Marshaling yards.

The Br (sc) is an early part of Br Scotland, a R was added later.

The BR(sc) was added after the lamp was made. There are BR stamps on all the other parts, but is clear that it was added later.
The fuel tank as some thing removed from were a region railway would of been.

It is a very interesting lantern, lots of history.

Many thanks to the staff at Steam for their help.


https://www.steam-museum.org.uk/

 

[SammyQ]

We use a torch with on-steroids L.E.D.'s for the three colours. Bloomin' expensive. Our little heritage railway can't run to walkie-talkie's.

 

[Owd Jockey]

Well done Ark for a great restoration. Your Shunter's Lamp reminded me of a restoration I saw on one of my subscribed YouTube channels. My Mechanic's restoration channel is probably the best restoration channel on YouTube and I recently re-watched a restoration of one of those old red and white roadworks lamps.
I love to see good restorations

 

[Dalboy]

Nice job on the railway lamp. There was an episode of the Repair shop where they restored one of those which also included slumping to for one of the lenses as one was missing

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Well done Ark for a great restoration. Your Shunter's Lamp reminded me of a restoration I saw on one of my subscribed YouTube channels. My Mechanic's restoration channel is probably the best restoration channel on YouTube and I recently re-watched a restoration of one of those old red and white roadworks lamps.
I love to see good restorations

Got a few road lamps myself.

 

[stuckinthemud]

Just the one for me. Salvaged it from the rail sheds opposite my house just before they were repurposed as a bowls centre. Been slowly mouldering away in a corner of my workshop for twenty odd years. Ashamed to say I assumed it was battery powered, and that the electics had long since rotted out since it rattled if it was shaken and because it was quite literally the only thing BR left after they stripped the yard. Logically it was mullered, right? I’d never opened it and never realised it was kerosene until now, much less repairable. It’s now been added to The List. Anyone know how old it might be?

 

[Owd Jockey]

Love the lathe bed 'table!

 

[niall Y]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#

. BR phased out steam trains by Aug 1948,

I think you might have got this date wrong.by a few years

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A mere typo.

 

[Vann]

The history of the lamp is a bit more complicated...

Certainly more complicated than the history of mine. It was left over at the time they were phased out (replaced by battery powered tri-colour lamps) and this was among a few that had never been used. A friend who was a shunter at the time asked me if I wanted to save it from the rubbish skip.

It would have been made in the mid to late 1970s IIRC.

It has quite a few differences to yours, but enough features in common to be worth a comparison - I feel.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Cooper]

Got a few road lamps myself.

This reminds me of an incident in 1967. We had been to a beach party on the last day of a holiday in south Devon a load of us set off back to London in my brother’s old van. We had picked up one or two souvenirs along the way.one was a battered road lamp. We got to Yeovil and couldn’t drive any further. On our way down we had noticed a car park or market square and thought we would head for that. We turned into a road we thought was the right way only to bump into a police car. The officers and we got out and they inspected a scuff on their car and measured the height of our fuel cap. They then opened the back of the van to find a few folk still asleep and our souvenirs. Picking up the road lamp one of them actually said Hello Hello what have we got here? My brother said we found it by the road, shall I put it down here? The officers thought this hilarious and one sad We’d hate to shame you into returning stolen property. Then asked where we were going, we explained to the car park to rest before driving on. They gave us directions and sent us on our way!