1916 GWR plan is chart-topper ahead of 1950s steam

A 105-year-old GWR detailed plan of the Oxford & Birmingham Railway from Bordesley viaduct to Snow Hill station topped the charts in the quarterly Paperchase auction of transport literature, paperwork and photographs that ran from October 14 to November 2. Selling for £710, the two chains to one-inch scale coloured clothbound plan was folded into leather covers with the front title in gold lettering.

Approximately 110 black-and-white negatives of Austrian and German steam in the 1950s sold in two lots for £670 and £520, about 94 BR(E) and British Transport Commission 1d Edmondson platform tickets went for £460, and a BR(M) Crewe North 179-page passenger engine workings dated June 1958 realised £370.

Bids were accepted in the 800-lot auction by email, telephone or post, and the prices quoted exclude buyer's premium of 12½%.