Boiler nameplate.

Back in RAIL 876, Stop & Examine carried a picture of this Parkinson plate, sent to us by Steven Beesley, from Stockport.

He asked fellow RAIL readers to shed any light on its origins, and John Allen soon responded by identifying it as the product of an industrial boiler manufacturer.

Now Ken Woods, from Carlton (near Selby), has written in with lots more information.

“It was normal practice to fit the name of the manufacturer to steam boilers, often above the fire hole door - or (come to think of it) put their maker’s plate on anything a company made/makes.

“An example is one of the two boilers which were fitted to the H&B Railway swing bridge at Long Drax, which was the next bridge down river from Selby - the bridge being completed in 1885 for the opening of the Hull Barnsley and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company.”

Ken sent us a picture of the bridge and of boilerman Chris Pittaway, standing in front of No. 2 boiler, adding: “In Chris’s case, only a handful of people would ever see the boiler house - in part this being due to having to reach the island of the swing bridge by boat, across the fast-flowing River Ouse. “Sea-going ships as well as barge traffic levels were high in those days, and the bridge would have to be left in the ‘open to river traffic’ position when not manned, leaving the signalman and boiler house man to row across to the riverbank. The bridge and line closed in around 1959 and was dismantled in the 1970s. “As the manufacturer’s plates were for stationary boilers, they were not made as robust as those for steam railway locomotive. Looking at the ‘Parkinson’ name plate, I doubt if it would have survived very long attached to a steam locomotive.”