SBR desination
Andy at the time of writing I still did not know what the "SBR" desination meant.
In the time after Volume I was written we had additional resources available in Germany, Stephan Hansen being a key contributor.
I had queried him this past year and here are his thoughts:
I agree with you, SBR is incorrectly associated with Berlin Police. I have an idea and in my opinion some arguments speak for it:
The marking certainly means Reichsbahndirektion Saarbrücken.
After the World War I, in the year 1920, as a result of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, the Saar area and with it the city of Saarbrücken was placed under the administration of the League of Nations. In April 1920, the German Direktion of the Saar area Railway was relocated to Trier and renamed as Stammeisenbahndirektion Saarbrücken in Trier. In March 1921 it was renamed to Eisenbahndirection des Saargebietes and as example all the locomotives were named SAAR.
In a referendum on January 13, 1935, the majority of the population of the Saar decided to re-affiliate to the Deutsche Reich. Then they merged the Eisenbahndirection des Saargebietes with Reichsbahndirektion Trier to Reichsbahndirektion Saarbrücken based in Saarbrücken. As example the abbreviation SAAR on the locomotives got changed back to SBR.