The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘Mind-blowing’ railway artefacts found in garage
Collection to be put up for sale after death of owner
Signs from a former railway station in Levenmouth that were long thought lost have been discovered in a garage in Wiltshire.
The signs from Cameron Bridge station, which closed in the 1960s, were part of a huge collection of railway artefacts found following the death of its owner.
The Fife signs are among more than 250 items from railways across the UK, the London Underground and London Transport dating from the early 20th Century to the 1970s.
A large proportion of the items come from railway stations that were closed during the cuts of the 1960s, when a report by Dr Richard Beeching prompted a major reduction in Britain’s rail network.
Cameron Bridge is among 14 lost railway stations whose signs are to be sold, and those include East Brixton in London; St Ann’s Park in Bristol; Blaenrhondda in South Wales; Lydd on Sea in Kent and North Tawton in Devon.
In addition, the sale includes items of railway staff uniforms, badges, clocks, lamps, platform furniture, advertisements and other equipment.
The collection will be going up for sale in Wiltshire following the death of its owner, an elderly former railway worker.
He is believed to have amassed the collection over six decades, storing most of the signs in the garage of his semidetached house.
Principal auctioneer Richard Edmonds said: “This collection is mindblowing. It’s the biggest of its kind I’ve ever seen.
“To put it into perspective, the most classic railway totem signs I’ve sold before at a single auction was two. Now I’ve got over 50 of them.
“What’s even more surprising is that the late collector’s wife had no idea what he was doing. She called us in to review the small part of the collection he kept in their house. It wasn’t until we looked in their garage that we realised what she’d seen before was just the tip of a railway iceberg.
“We’ve already had lots of interest – and it’s still over a month to the auction. We’re expecting some individual signs to go for well into four figures.”
The railway heritage items will be auctioned at 10am on Friday November 10 at Chippenham Auction Rooms.
Items will be available for viewing on Thursday November 9.