Pete Waterman train auction raises more than £600,000

Pete Waterman said he was selling the collection to fund an apprenticeship scheme at the heritage trust he runs

An auction of part of the model railway collection owned by record producer Pete Waterman has raised more than £600,000.

Waterman said he was selling the collection, which included 56 Gauge 1 steam models, to fund apprenticeships at the heritage trust he runs.

Two of the models sold for £124,000 each, while another went for £86,800.

He said the engines had realised what he wanted and he had raised "not far off" the amount he hoped.

A Beyer Goods, which Waterman said was "the greatest steam railway engine built in miniature", was one of the models to fetch £120,000.

The sale of 32 of the models fetched a total of £627,229, including buyers' premium.

The remaining 24 models failed to reach their reserve price and were not sold, but post-sale offers are continuing to come in, the auctioneers said.

Waterman described the engines, built from scratch for him, as "the Fabergé eggs of the railway world".

'Works of art'

He said he had decided to sell what amounts to around a tenth of his collection in order to raise enough money to secure the future of the Waterman Railway Heritage Trust, which holds his collection of full-size steam engines.

He said the pieces he was selling no longer fitted "into his wider collection".

"I never run that stuff any more," he said. "Everything I'm selling is unique. It was all built for me.

Pete Waterman says the pieces no longer fit into his wider collection

"They are one-offs. They are not toys - they are works of art. That's why they are so pricey."

The sale was carried out by at Dreweatts and Bloomsbury Auctions.

The house's steam and model engineering consultant Michael Matthews said: "The collection is unique.

"These models were all built from scratch. They were commissioned over a period of 20 years and Mr Waterman got some of the best builders at the time to work for him - few other people would have had the wealth and enthusiasm to do that."

The collection was built from scratch for the pop music producer