Northampton direction sign points the way to victory ahead of ECML goods office clock

STATION direction signs are invariably a draw in railwayana auctions – it took me many years to find one for my boyhood local station, but I got there in the end – so it would not have been a surprise when a BR example pointing the way to Northampton Castle station topped the realisations in Spicers’ of East Yorkshire railwayana auction on February 11 with a price of £1300.

The station was opened by the LNWR in February 1859 and renamed simply Northampton in April 1966 due to the town’s other two stations – St John’s Street and Bridge Street – having by then been closed, the former in 1939 and the latter in 1964. Midland Region trainspotters may remember Castle station as the location of shed 2E.

Runner-up at £550 was an early 20th century 8in dial wall clock from the goods office at the East Coast Main Line station of St Neots in Cambridgeshire. Prices exclude buyer’s premium of 20% (inc VAT).