ORIGINAL William Heath Robinson artwork went under the hammer yesterday, in the latest auction of the Malcolm Guest Railway Collection.

The sale featured more than 80 cartoons and drawings of unusual inventions with a railway theme, and follows the auction of vintage posters and railway memorabilia from Mr Guest’s collection in January, which raised £410,000.

Knaresborough resident Malcolm Ivor Guest was born in Devon in 1943, and had a passion for the railway from an early age.

While working for the publicity department at Paddington Station, he collected posters and promotional material for the Great Western Railway, and continued to do so until his death in July 2009.

A spokesman for auctioneers Morphets of Harrogate said: “While working at Paddington Malcolm had the vision to see that so much of the Great Western Railway output, considered superfluous under British Rail, consisted of works of art that should be preserved rather than disposed of.”

“Doing so brought him much joy and accounts for the great depth of the collection, which represents a lifelong appreciation.”

William Heath Robinson was a popular artist in the 1920s and 30s, and was famous for his eccentric machines, often powered by steam engines or locomotives.

He was commissioned by the Great Western Railway to celebrate their centenary in 1935, and the original signed drawings, with titles such as Building the First Locomotive and An Unfortunate Start to the Summer Holidays: A Very Old but Efficient Test for Brakes, are expected to sell for between £70,000 and £90,000 in total, with individual prices ranging from £200 to £2,500.

This was the second sale of Mr Guest’s collection, with a third planned for July, which will see two thousand railway posters go to auction at Morphets in Harrogate.