Copper Nob

The Copper Nob 040 tender engine or Locomotive Number 3 of the Furness Railway, here on display at the Museum of Transport in London but it has moved on since this card was issued, and is now at the National Railway Museum in York. Despite being quite an age, being built in 1846 by Bury, Curtis and Kennedy of Liverpool, it still on occasion gets to chug out on the rails, most notably when the 150 anniversary of the Furness Railways came round. It hauled the first passenger train of that company.  Its affectionate nickname of Old Copper Nob comes from the domed shape of the copper firebox. She is painted in the Furness Railway livery, the colour, Indian Red.  After retirement in 1898 she was put on display in a glass case at Barrow Central Station but the station was bombed in the Second World War destroying the glass case and inflicting a few shrapnel wounds on the locomotive

Despite retiring you can see from this old card the engine still got out and about.  The proud railwaymen standing by the gleaming engine

for the reason, written in pencil, on the back "Coppernob preparatory to departure for Wembley Exhibition 1925".   This was the British Empire Exhibition held in London where the many countries of the then empire had a displays of culture and industry and ran for two summer seasons. Visitor attractions were an amusement park, a stadium (which would later become the Wembley Stadium of football finals), and exhibitions including a special exhibition space for the several railway companies of which it seems Furness Railways was one.

This year at the 2010 London Festival of stamps they issued a set of "The King's Stamps"; referring to the stamp enthusiast George V who collected and took an interest in the design of stamps.  Two of these were reproductions of

the British Empire Exhibition stamps and Royal Mail also issued a set of  eight postcards

I couldn't decide which one to post, I like the fact that one has three halfpence on it, (that coinage and price is well in the past!) but I like the other because it is red.  Both are the same on the reverse

Beth of The Best Hearts Are Crunchy is our hostess for Postcard Friendship Friday