Nameplate boost for GCRA monthly auction

GREAT Central has boosted to three the nameplate selection in its monthly auction on May 15, following the late addition of Gwalior from LMS Jubilee No. 45589, which was built by North British in Glasgow in December 1934 and withdrawn from Wakefield (56A) in March 1965.

As reported in last month's column, the sale will also include Henry Cort from LNWR Experiment class 4-6-0 No. 1413/ LMS No. 5515 – thus giving the LMS two nameplate representatives – and Draycott Manor from GWR No. 7810.

The Manor and Jubilee classes also feature in two other categories, the former with one of the cabside numberplates from preserved No. 7820 Dinmore Manor and the latter with the smokebox numberplate from No. 45565 Victoria.

A smokebox numberplate from another LMS locomotive in the auction is 41974 from a Class 3P 4-4-2T built at Derby in February 1930 for the London Tilbury and Southend line and withdrawn in 1955. The class totalled 39 engines, and only two smokeboxes are known to have survived.

Worksplates include a Doncaster 1959 example from a class 71 electric loco in the E5001-13 series, and from a far earlier era comes a policeman's tipstaff from the Manchester & Leeds Railway, which started operations in July 1839 and morphed into the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway exactly eight years later, in July 1847.

What Great Central auctioneer Mike Soden says could be an early example of railway merchandising is a telescope from an unknown manufacturer which carries a brass plate commemorating the 100mph achieved by No. 4472 Flying Scotsman on November 30, 1934, the first time a steam locomotive had been authentically timed at this speed, and for signalling enthusiasts there is a single line key token from a former Great North of Scotland Railway branch line.

The key covers the entire five-mile Fraserburgh-St Combs route in Aberdeenshire, the last line built by the GNoSR before the 1923 Grouping. It opened in July 1903, closed to passengers in May 1965 and to freight in 1979, and incorporated a two-road engine shed at Fraserburgh, a subshed of Aberdeen Kittybrewster (61A). The station site has been redeveloped, but the shed survives and is now in commercial use.

The auction, Great Central's fourth in its series of monthly 200-lot sales, starts at 10am and will include email, telephone and commission bidding in addition to being live online.

TRANSPORT TREASURY/NEVILLE STEAD Class D40 No. 62276 Andrew Bain awaits its next turn of duty at Fraserburgh shed in Aberdeenshire, a sub-shed of Kittybrewster (61A), on May 20, 1952. The 1920 North British-built 4-4-0 was withdrawn in August 1955, but classmate No. 62277 Gordon Highlander was saved for preservation after being taken out of service in July 1958. Behind the shed, which survives and is in commercial use, is the tower of the distinctive Dalrymple Hall, which opened in 1881 and is now a community venue. A single line key token for the entire five-mile branch line that ran from Fraserburgh to St Combs will be going under the hammer at Great Central’s monthly sale on May 15.

An early example of railway merchandising?