Vintage railway collection goes under the hammer

A collection of thousands of items of railway memorabilia has sold for £30,000 at auction.

Station signs, uniforms, ticket machines and signal box instruments are among the pieces amassed by a collector in Somerset over nearly 50 years.

Following the collector's death, all 300 lots were sold by Charterhouse Auctioneers in Sherborne, Dorset.

Auctioneer Richard Bromell described it as a "fabulous collection". He said the collector's interest was initially sparked by an uncle who worked on the railway.

He said the thousands of items of so-called "railwayana" had "filled" the collector's bungalow.

Other items include guards' whistles dating back 150 years as well as clocks, books, and advertising artwork.

The sale includes items from post-war British Rail as well as the pre-nationalisation era when individual private rail companies operated steam trains.

Among the early sales was a Leicester Square underground station sign which went for £780 and a lamp with the words "Portsmouth town" went for £800.

A Great Western Railway inspector's cap sold for £100.

Mr Bromell said there had been "a lot of interest" in the collection, with online bidders joining from as far afield as Australia

"They are all the things we have forgotten about. A lot of it is big, decorative and heavy.

"People love their railwayana and they love their trains - when they see it, they want to buy it."

He said, unusually, it had been a "white glove" auction, meaning all lots had been sold.

The total hammer price for all the items was about £24,000, with the auctioneer's premium taking the total sale value to £30,000.

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