Looking at the shovels that are shown on the English web site, the SA shovel is larger, namely as far as the length of the blade is concerned, the two British ones are narrower than the NSWGR type also the handles T is different. I once was given a SA shovel & they were a lot heavier than the NSWGR typea as well. The blades were of thicker gauge metal than the NSWGR types, where you see the side edges slope down, they are longer slope than ours.
The other shovel shown in the grass was realistically at condemnation stage owing to the "teaspoon" size of the blade. When a shovel was new, they were generally restricted in use depending on the depot they were sent to. At Enfield & I understand other main line depots had mininum standards for the shovels that were used on different types of workings, such as shunting engines & types, Metro Trip trains, or other local working trains, then the deep sea or long main line working. 36, 38 & coal 59cl were all issued with full size blade shovels especially on the main line workings.
The end of the blades would often burr as on a rough riding engine you might miss the firehole & catch the edge, you felt that in the shoulders & upe the arms. The blades also wore thin over time, & you needed to flatten the burrs by using the coal pick as a hammer. The other vital part on a shovel, in many ways more important than the condition of the blade wash the metal neck & where the wooden stem was fitted, the greater proportion of shovels had good joins where there was a neat fitting from the metal to the wood, especially at the back of the shovel, unless you got a smooth join, or the metal section actually came together creating a smooth join, after a couple of hours shovelling you could readily end up with cuts in the palm of your hand as a result of the poor fit.
One storeman at Enfield didn't care less about the condition of the shovel & many arguements took place, you were entitled to complain & reject a shovel based on its condition including the handle areas, all new shovels were inspected & were supposed to be rejected by the stores branch head if they were not as they were suppossed to be. At the old steam depot store, there was a long rack for shovels on the wall inside the store at #1 shed side, each shovel was positioned within a section based on the condition of the blade, there was 4 sections, first one was new/as new condition full blade no damage. Next was full blade damaged, acceptable if not too bad. 3rd was cut back & damaged, use on metro working only with Standard goods type loco's & other small engine types. Last was those shovels deemed only satisfactory for yard shunting engines. There were some other shovels with blades roughly of the sixe shown in the photo's they were emergency ones & only kept until new shovels were supplied.
Stoker fed loco's were supplied with a shovel that was in the 3rd category, that is less than a full blade & damaged, reason being that none of those engines were expected to be fired with a load behind them by shovel. I had one garratt get jammed at Wyee one evening & we stowed the load there & went LE to Gosford, a brake shoe was found in the screw that had jammed the thing. It was quite a chore keeping a balance with steam & water, primarilly owing to the manual firehole doors along with the distance between shovelling plate & the firehole. My mate would open & shut as I shovelled.
Those shovels were usually made available to signal boxes, stations & the like for use in maintaining fires in waiting rooms. It was not infrequently seen that large stations with waiting rooms some how ended up with shovels that were in better condition than
As the blades wore, providing the main tip of the blade was in fair to reasonable condition, that is in regard to its length they were left as spares.
Shovels are still being made, but do not know who has the contract to produce them, which means they would have to have original patterns, don't forget that there are several steam groups in NSW & other states that still have operating steam & each of them at least from what I have seen in NSW they do have the same type of shovel as used when steam was in regular service.