HEADBOARDS – TIME TO GO ‘FULL FRONTAL’?

While on about authenticity I have to mention… headboards! For however lovely your train might be, the slab of tin dangling off the front is crucial to how it looks. But have standards been allowed to slip?

Less than a decade ago (in 2010), there was indignation from photographers when Oliver Cromwell first ran over Shap in preservation – but with a red ‘Roaring Monster’ headboard. (Never mind the Mk 2 support coach, or that the previous time there were neither overhead wires nor M6…). Yet, I suggest, these days it might hardly draw a mention.

Steam Dreams used to have traditional headboards for the ‘Cathedrals Express’ in different colours, including a Southern ‘tablet’ à la the ‘ACE’. Now though, it has a large curving version informing anyone who cares to look that this is “The Steam Dreams Rail Co. Est 1999”. No pretence at being vintage there then; yet I’ve heard no outrage, no complaints of inauthenticity.

Then there’s Saphos. We gricers truly have lots for which to thank Jeremy Hosking. And yes, Britannia was fabulously turned out in full ‘Golden Arrow’ regalia recently, to add to an earlier incarnation of the ‘Royal Scot’ complete with tartan headboard, with No. 46100 as power. But then there’s the ‘house ad’ headboard. It’s a pretty clever device – a kind of ‘Merchant Navy’ nameplate British Railways-lionesque and garter amalgam – and arguably as a logo it’s pretty smart.

But as a headboard? Really? Surely only the Western Region went for such things – and even they normally restrained themselves to a pretty traditional base, even if they did perch dragons and whatnot on top.

However, Jeremy

Hosking’s spokesman Peter Greenwood demurs even at the suggestion the headboard is ‘non-traditional’.

“I guess this depends on how far you go back for your ‘tradition’”, he counters. “If you only consider the BR period then I would be inclined to agree with you, but go back to the ‘Big Four’ era and you can find some more variety.”

In fact, he claims, if you compare the Saphos headboard with the ‘Royal Scot’, “I think you can see what inspired it!”

“I also remember seeing photos of many special trains during the 1950s with circular headboards which covered the entire smokebox door… there were many such examples on special holiday trains and ‘works outings’ to the seaside… ”

There is, he says, no “hard and fast” rule about Saphos headboards. But most trips “don’t have a link to the name of a train of the good old days, so in lieu of anything more appropriate it does put our name in the public eye for those members of the public who are not railway enthusiasts to… maybe get in touch with us to book a trip on a future railtour.”

Indeed, Peter is “still amazed” by conversations with people “who have no idea that steam still operates on the network!”

So, make up your own mind. Should we strive for historical accuracy – or is a headboard a ‘branding opportunity’? And if the latter, then why not go all out and mimic a 1950s ‘jolly day trip’?

Maybe… it’s time to go ‘full frontal’?

TERRY EYRES Saphos’ unusual house headboard adorns ‘West Country’ No. 34046 Braunton as it tackles Manchester’s Miles Platting Bank with the ‘Yorkshireman’ on September 14.

BOTH: COLOUR RAIL TOP: Headboards – should we go back to something like this? ‘Compound’ 4-4-0 No. 41101 at Blackpool in August 1959. ABOVE: …Or this? ‘Duchess’ City of Salford provides a ‘Welcome to Britain’s Railway Queen’.