TWO nameplates from Swindon-made Great Western Railway steam locomotives are expected to sell for more than £7,000 each at an auction this weekend.

Railway enthusiasts from across the country will be bidding for these prized pieces of steam memorabilia when they are put up for auction in Pershore, Worcestershire, on Saturday.

A nameplate from the Saint Benet’s Hall 4-6-0 Hall Class locomotive, built at Swindon in March 1935 and scrapped at Swindon in or around 1962, is tipped to sell for between £7,000 and £9,000 at the GW Railwayana Auctions sale.

Meanwhile at the same sale, a nameplate from the Bucklebury Grange locomotive, built at Swindon in September 1936 and withdrawn from service in September 1965, is valued at £7,500.

Simon Turner, a director of GW Railwayana Auctions, said: “It may go for higher than that because of its condition.

“It is very rare to find nameplates these days that have never been polished or messed around.”

Saint Benet’s Hall, which is named after an Oxford University building and its sister locomotive Olton Hall – which appears as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films – were among 259 GWR Hall Class locomotives built at Swindon between 1928 and 1943. However, only 11 of these locomotives have survived.

Also in the auction on Saturday is a rare 1950s Wootton Bassett railway station totem sign in what the auctioneers have described as “virtually mint condition”.

This amazing piece of railway nostalgia could sell for between £1,200 and £1,400.

Between 1923 and 1948, the four biggest railway companies were the Great Western Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway, the London Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway.

On January 1, 1948, all four companies were nationalised to become British Railways.

Now 60 years later, mementoes and memorabilia from this golden and glamorous age of steam – particularly from the Great Western Railway – are becoming increasingly sought after and valuable.

In November last year at the Swann Galleries in New York, a Great Western Railway poster advertising Cornwall – produced in 1936 when the Bucklebury Grange locomotive was built at Swindon – sold for £1,275.