Auction house stunned as station platform sign sells for £30,000
A PLATFORM totem sign from a remote Scottish station sold for a world-record £30,000 at auction on November 12, a realisation nearly nine times the reserve price that left auctioneer Simon Turner “stunned”.
There was no indication of what was to unfold as Simon, who runs GW Railwayana, approached lot No. 569, a totem from Crianlarich Lower. It carried a reserve of £3500, but when the price passed £10,000 he realised, in his own words, that “something was happening.” Indeed it was, thanks to two determined online bidders, and eventually the hammer came down at £30,000 – a world record for a station sign.
“I was stunned, as I had no inkling beforehand,” he told Heritage Railway, adding that he understood the successful bidder had wanted one of the station’s five totems for several decades.
Although only a small village with a population recorded in the 2001 census of just 185, Crianlarich, located in Stirlingshire, north of Loch Lomond, was served by two stations for more than 70 years. The first was opened by the Callander & Oban Railway in August 1873 and the second by the West Highland Railway in August 1894.
Until 1953, each was named simply after the village, which lies in the shadow of 3852ft-high Ben More, but in June of that year BR added ‘Lower’ to the older station’s name and ‘Upper’ to the 1894 station. That distinction remained until September 1965, when Lower was closed to passengers, and Upper, which is still open today, reverted to its original name.
Considerable interest
Earlier in the auction, Simon set another category record, although one that was less unexpected. It was a 1940 LNER Doncaster worksplate from BR Class EM1 No. 26000 Tommy, the prototype of the only class of electric locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley and the only one of the 58-strong class built by the LNER.
Its price of £12,500 is the highest ever achieved by an electric locomotive worksplate, although, unlike the Crianlarich Lower totem, interest from collectors prior to the auction had prepared Simon for a possible five-figure realisation.
The Bo-Bo emerged from Doncaster in February 1941 as No. 6701 for operating on the Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield, but the project to electrify the line was delayed by the Second World War, and in 1947 the locomotive was loaned to the Netherlands state railway, with which it remained in service until being returned to the UK in February 1952.
During its time in The Netherlands, it gained the unofficial name Tommy, the nickname for British soldiers, and after its return BR renumbered it 26000 and fitted it with an official Tommy nameplate that was accompanied by a plaque explaining the background to the name.
Electrification of the 41½-mile Woodhead route was completed in January 1955, and No. 26000 was taken out of service in March 1970 following the withdrawal of passenger services two months earlier, although it was not cut up at Crewe until October 1972.
➜ Read Geoff Courtney’s railwayana column in next month’s Heritage Railway for full details of the auction.