Old Cameron Bridge Station sign to go up for auction

The signs are part of a huge collection of historic railway memoribelia discovered in a Wiltshire garage after the death of its owner.

The sale includes over 250 signs and items dating from the early years of the 20th century up to the 1970s.

A large proportion of the items come from railway stations that were closed during the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, when a report by Dr Richard Beeching prompted a major reduction in Britain’s rail network.

Cameron Bridge sign is one of 14 from ‘lost stations’ across the UK.

In addition, the sale, includes items of railway staff uniforms, badges, clocks, lamps, platform furniture, advertisements and other equipment. The team at Chippenham Auctions Rooms is still in the process of cataloguing the items.

The collection has come onto the market following the death of its owner, an elderly former railway worker from Wiltshire. He is believed to have amassed the collection over six decades, storing most of the signs in the garage of his semi-detached house.

Principal auctioneer Richard Edmonds said: “This collection is mind-blowing. It’s the biggest of its kind I’ve ever seen. To put it into perspective, the most classic railway totem signs I’ve sold before at a single auction was two. Now I’ve got over 50 of them!

“What’s even more surprising is that the late collectors’ wife had no idea what he was doing. She called us in to review the small part of the collection he kept in their house. It wasn’t until we looked in their garage that we realised what she’d seen before was just the tip of a railway iceberg.

“We’ve already had lots of interest – and it’s still over a month to the auction. We’re expecting some individual signs to go for well into four figures.”

The railway heritage items will be auction at 10am on Friday, November 10, at Chippenham Auction Rooms, Chippenham, Wiltshire. Items will be available for viewing on Thursday, November 9.