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Interesting and valuable collection of 'Petrobilia /Petroliana' featured in the first of this new series on BBC2:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ybzg1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yhd4 ... des/player

"This episode follows Stuart, whose love of all things railway has led to him building a life-size 1950s railway station in his back garden to house his 1,000 piece collection of signs. But his passion doesn't stop there; Stuart has not one, but three huge collections. The railway collection spills into the purpose-built underground station, then there is the 'petroliana' in the garage - signs and equipment from petrol stations - and finally an entire street of Victorian shops in his attic to house his 6,000 items of packaging."

I agree it was a good show, and how did the railway man accumulate so much stuff.

I do have similar problems with my diecast car collection. Every five years or so I have to have a purge of the collection as I keep running out of space. Last year I sold off my vast Ferrari F1 collection to make way for my ever increasing Mini collection.

It's a fair old bet he managed to rescue / liberate a lot of the Southern Railway / BR Southern Region enamel signs from skips / junk piles when stations were being closed or had new BR corporate black and white signs fitted back in the '60s, probably for very little or no money at all. I've got a brown and cream BR totem sign from Maidenhead station which I bought from the bloke who saved it from a skip outside the entrance in 1970 when the new signage was going up. As rusty as is it it's still worth saving. When Rugby station was remodelled a few years ago I saved three of the '70s BR signs that were replaced, one of them had been run over by a digger but I managed to flatten it out again.... once they're gone, they're gone for good!

Love the road and garage signs he's got in that programme!