Great Central’s auction covers three eras, from prewar to Nationalisation

LOCOMOTIVES built in three different eras of the UK's railway evolution will form the nameplate selection in Great Central's sixth monthly online auction on July 10.

Comprising Henry Cort, City of Liverpool, Wimpole Hall, County of Hants, and Caerhays Castle, the plates come from, respectively, LNWR No. 1413 and GCR No. 428, both pre-Grouping locos, Nos. 5963 and 1016, two GWR products built in the days of the Big Four, and No. 7014, a Castle class built by BR.

No. 1413, whose plate has been held over from two previous auctions, was built at Crewe in April 1909 and withdrawn by the LMS in September 1925. No. 428 was one of six in the GCR's Class 1 that was outshopped by Gorton in December 1913 and withdrawn from Immingham as LNER Class B19 No. 1493 in April 1947. The Hall emerged from Swindon in July 1936 and taken out of service in June 1964 when a Bristol St Philip's Marsh resident (82B).

No. 1016 was another Swindon engine, having been built in March 1946 and withdrawn from Shrewsbury (89A) in September 1963, and so too No. 7014, which started life as a BR build in July 1948 and ended its days at Birmingham's Tyseley depot (2A) in February 1965.

Cabside numberplate

The cabside numberplate from County of Hants will also be going under the hammer, separately from the nameplate, and will be joined by 5958 from Knolton Hall and 4041 from Star class Prince of Wales, built at Swindon in June 1913. Before this 4-6-0's withdrawal from Bristol Bath Road (82A) in April 1951, BR had four identically-named locos in service – No. 4041, A3 No. 60054, D11 No. 62662, and Vale of Rheidol 2-6-2T No. 9.

Worksplates include a 1949 Darlington plate from LNER A1 No. 60144 King’s Courier (works No. 2063), and there's a headboard, ‘The Welshman', a Euston-Holyhead express I logged four times in 1959 and the following year with a Royal Scot class loco at the helm each time, including No. 46100 itself at Rhyl on August 1, 1959, and the last member of the class, No. 46170 British Legion ,at Lichfield Trent Valley on August 6, 1960.

Railway policemen's tipstaffs have been a regular feature at recent auctions, and the theme continues in this sale with a GWR inspector's example.

The auction starts at 10am, and in addition to being live online, will accept email, telephone and commission bids.