Different brake handles

[trainsandco]

Evening all,

I’ve been looking into Siphon G’s and upgrading them, just a quick question for something I’ve just come up against (quite a small pedantic thing). The brake handles - I’ve noticed 2 types the perhaps more standard long version, and a much shorter type with a circle behind the handle (see attached photos - neither are mine, shamelessly borrowed from google whilst researching). From what I can gather the smaller type is an earlier type, but what I’d like to know is could one fitted with the smaller type be rebuilt with the longer type or were the siphons never rebuilt at all?

In short, I’ve bought the wrong brake handles for the prototype I’m modelling and hoping that the larger type it currently has was a later modification!!

Cheers

Ben

[Mountain]

Not sure about the brake handles but I know the siphons did come in different sizes, and each different design/size had a different letter.

[Pennine MC]

Siphon Gs had a long build run - if you look at the bottom pic, it has outside framing, which gives it away as being older. The brakegear is Dean-Churchward, and although GWR brown vehicles are not my strong point, I'd think it unlikely that any had the brakes rebuilt, it just wouldn't be worth the effort

[Pete]

An off topic question, but where does the name Siphon come from with respect to these wagons?

I hope I'm not going to kick myself when I find out!

P.

[stuartp]

On plenty of vehicles, Siphons included, if you look at enough examples you can find several combinations of brakes, bogies and buffers depending on who built it and when. The devil is in the detail and it's fascinating.

As for the codeword, don't expect to find a logical explanation, there often isn't one. It needed to be a short word unlikely to be mistaken for anything else, which could be transmitted quickly via a single stroke telegraph. Some, especially the later ones, were concantenates of the vehicle description (HIFIT, VANFIT, PALVAN etc), some of the GW ones were quite imaginative if something of a memory test (TOAD, SIPHON, PACO, CONE etc), the only ones I can think of with any sort of theme were the engineers' marine names (GANNET, DOGFISH, STARFISH, TUNNEY etc) and even then there's no obvious connection between fish and civil engineering to act as a starting point.

The vehicle codes are only half the story, there were codes for all sorts of operational and commercial messages some of them quite esoteric. My all time favourite is FUNCO - "Undermentioned train conveys funeral party with corpse". A former colleague hired a special train on one of the preserved railways for his retirement bash, the invitation email was sent entirely in BR Telegraph Code followed ten minutes later by one headed "And for those if you who can't find your copy of 'BR STANDARD CODES FOR TELEGRAMS'..."

SILK, CAPE, PINE, CALVIN, MINT and CLOVE are still in every day use, even in the digital age.

[Lysander]

An off topic question, but where does the name Siphon come from with respect to these wagons?

I hope I'm not going to kick myself when I find out!

P.

It’s simply the telegraphic code name the GWR gave to these vehicles , as in Mica, Toad, Crocodile, Pollen, etc. The GWR also used single word codes in telegrams to save time and words- eg. Santoi meant send a breakdown crane at once and Moselle meant give this matter special attention. The arcane world of the GWR telegraphic department.....

Tony

[Pete]

Fascinating, I will have to look into all this further

Thanks!

Pete