The LNER Encyclopedia

Goes to show you can never trust a sly old Fox.

Very good

Dear All,
I think I can help... because we are, sadly, just about to put our Snapper nameplate up for sale. My father bought the plate from BR in 1964. It arrived minus its brass star with very crazed blackened paint on the back plate. The 'ground' was dark green (brunswick - hard to tell through the grime) with the white-and-gold bands horizontally across it. We understood BR had repainted it in these colours. Rapid correspondence shows that at first BR couldn't find the brass star (and offered a three-pounds refund as a result) then a year later DID find it in Darlington. The loco by then was being cut up in Swindon. I have no record of whether the plate was supplied from Darlington or Swindon.
We had just moved house, so for 15 years it sat as a rather eccentric, but low-value, house name at the end of the garden at my boyhood home. When the star arrived, Dad simply attached it.
He had form with this house naming - a few years earlier he bought Sir Meliot de Logres for an eye-watering one pound sixty five pence, and attached that to the porch of his north London home. Dad was deeply impressed when Reggie Maudling knocked on his door canvassing, and announced himself with; "Ah! A King Arthur!!".
Over time The Snapper became too valuable to leave there, so came inside. For some years it was on public display at my open art studio at Levisham station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (I am professional resident artist on the railway - see www.WareHouseArt.com).
Dad decided to restore the plate to its original colours, as he would have seen it as a lad around Hull and York, so it now has a black 'ground' above the stripes and a crimson ground below - the colours in which it appeared when named by, I think, King George VI in Hull. We never intended to sell The Snapper, so to us it had no financial value but was greatly loved. But now my mother is in care and there are bills to pay...
Yesterday we said farewell to it by placing it alongside Sir Nigel Gresley as she passed through Levisham station to photograph it with Dad and Sir Nigel. Today the nameplate has left home for Sheffield Railwayana and is due to be auctioned on Saturday June 6th at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire.
I'm very interested in any extra information you experts might have, and an up-date on whether it is - at eleven words and 51 letters - the longest nameplate to have been cast. Feel free to contact me at chris@warehouseart.com. I'm happy to email j-pegs of the plate as it is now.
I hope that helps your researches - keep up the good work!
Best wishes
Chris

Hi Christopher,

That is very interesting information, particularly about the background colours changing during the BR period.

The colour shots I have seen show a dark or black ground with the two lighter bands, probably exaggerated by grime.

John

Christopher's post, whilst very sad considering the circumstances, is also interesting, as a comment I made in January regarding the colours that Fox Transfers had produced their Snapper nameplate in now seems fully justified, ie they do theirs in what now appears to have been the correct colour scheme for the BR post Nationalisation era rather than the original LNER which was also clearly shown in a link by another post. When I passed those comments on to Fox they said they couldn't locate their original source which they used Ie the green/black/yellow combination but I shall have to tell them they're probably totally correct, as long as you're modelling after Nationalisation. (Won't stop me trying to get the Crimson/Black/Gold one's though for my 'Big 4' era model of The Snapper).
Trust Christopher and his family had a good response to the auction - would have loved to have been there as might just have made an offer.
Graeme Leary
New Zealand

Sorry to join this topic so late, but I was searching for something else and stumbled across it!
I have one of The Snapper nameplates, so I've taken a photo and attached it so the subject can be resolved!
All the best,
Ashley

That must be rare, both nameplate owners on the same forum!

Graeme,
did you read the Pullman info link?

Ron

There is a Colour Rail slide (BRE747) of 60809 taken at York 8/63. The yellow band starts at the lower tips of "The Snapper" frame and the white band finishes at the lower tips of the SE and SW points of the "star", so the yellow and white band is lower and wider than on the illustration above,

It is not possible to say if there is any other colour on the plate which appears uniform.

A black and white view taken from the Ian Allen Combined Volume with stock updated to mid-1962.

aburridge wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2016 2:37 pm Sorry to join this topic so late, but I was searching for something else and stumbled across it!
I have one of The Snapper nameplates, so I've taken a photo and attached it so the subject can be resolved!

snapper.jpg

All the best,
Ashley

Hello everyone.
I am putting the finishing touches to a live steam gauge 1 V2 "The Snapper" and a friend is about to etch nameplates for me but he would like to know the size of the original plate so that we can scale it tdown accuratly. I am hoping Ashley may be able to help as he had one of the original plates back in 2016.
Regards from Queensland, Australia
Paul Blake

as an aside ...why the SNAPPER?
Is it the nickname of the regiment?

It was! Now part of the Yorkshire Regiment.

STAFFORDA4 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:23 pm ...why the SNAPPER?

For an incident in combat in the US war of Independence. The regiment was low on ammunition in an engagement, and the available ammunition was distributed to those soldiers known to be the best shots*, while the bulk of the troops only charged the priming pans of their muskets with powder, so gave the appearance of firing without actually using the main charge of powder and ball. This was known as 'snapping' and was the standard method by which the effectiveness of the flintlock element of the weapon was tested. By getting a higher proportion than usual of the ball available on target the action was successful, and the regiment acquired the nickname 'The Snapper' from the ruse as a result.

*There must have been some prior planning to effectively produce this expedient, which speaks well of the officers commanding. I suspect that the best shots were also allocated loaders in order that the rate of fire be sufficient.