Enamel signs will be the target at Railwayana Sales’ internet auction

STATION totem and target signs and a ferry direction sign are among the enamel highlights in an internet and telephone auction being held by Railwayana Sales from September 26 to October 2.

Among the totems are BR(W) Bristol Temple Meads, BR(S) Folkestone Junction and BR(M) Windermere, while the SR targets include Mortlake, making its auction debut, and Richmond. The ferry sign, also from the SR, directs passengers to the ‘ferry-boat,’ and although its origins are not recorded, the auction house’s Chris France suggests it may be from Lymington Pier station, the terminus of the 5½-mile branch line from Brockenhurst, for services to the Isle of Wight.

A bilingual rules, regulations and conditions notice concerning quarrymen’s trains will also feature in the weeklong auction. It is from Dinorwic Quarries Railway, which opened with horse-drawn trains in 1824 on a seven-mile 2ft gauge line from the eponymous 700-acre slate quarry in Caernarvonshire to the port of Y Felinheli (Port Dinorwic). It was replaced by a 4ft gauge railway on a different trackbed in March 1843 that also used horse power until November 1848, when steam haulage was introduced.

The railway, which operated mainly purpose-built Hunslet engines, closed in November 1961, eight years before the quarry itself. At that time it employed 350 workers, a far cry from the 3000 it employed at its height in the late-19th century, when it was the second largest slate quarry in the world.

The notice is dated August 1895 and signed by W W Vivian, director and general manager.