Model railways can get expensive, but they don’t normally get into seven figures (and that’s approximately one-tenth of the total value):
Pete Waterman’s indelible links with pop empires and reality television overlook the personal vocal abilities of the mogul himself. In the late 1960s, when his infatuation with trains and their miniature replicas began, he funded his acquisitions by starting the flying choir — a venture in which his singing entertained wedding-goers at different churches across Coventry on Saturdays, earning 10/6 a time.
A guinea a week from his paper round and “five bob” from fetching coal in his sister’s pram also helped him replicate the sights he would witness from the tracks stretching past his childhood home. “When you live in a council house and these things go past your door, it’s your first encounter with beauty,” recalls the man whose collection, according to auctioneers Dreweatts, is of “incalculable” value 56 years in.
“There were people sitting with white tablecloths and table lamps having dinner. It was magical. Think of the contrast: we didn’t even have glass in the windows at home.
“I set out to create the best, and I have done for railways what some people have done for model cars and planes.”
Waterman is about to put £1 million of his scratch-built model trains under the hammer in Mayfair. It’s only a tenth of the full collection, but selling the live steam and 10mm to foot-scale models will raise enough to safeguard his full-size steam engines, held around the country under the direction of the Waterman Railway Heritage Trust.
“These full-size engines won’t be back in steam for ten years,” he admits. “I’m 68 now and this is probably the last chance I will have to restore the engines held by the trust. So I’m making sure there is enough money in ten years’ time to continue the job.”
Besides, he feels the artefacts going on sale are somewhat anomalistic. “They no longer fit into the wider collection. It’s almost like I was into Pre-Raphaelite art and I’m now a modernist.”
