A CENTURY old brass plate with links to Whitehaven, Cleator Moor and Millom is expected to sell for thousands. 

The plaque helps tell the sad story of a rare industrial steam locomotive which was broken for scrap after Millom Ironworks closed in September 1968.

It used to be fixed to Millom Ironworks No. 3 which was pretty worn out when the town’s biggest employer damped down its furnaces for the last time.

However, it was hoped that a preservation group would have taken on the loco as a restoration project.

Now the 15in by 12in brass plaque is being sold at auction and is expected to sell for a remarkable £2,000 to £3,000.

The plaque is in the sale on June 19 by Great Central Railwayana, of Daventry in Northamptonshire.

It shows that the locomotive was built as No 250 by the New Lowca Engineering Company at Whitehaven in 1912.

It was a standard gauge engine built for the Whitehaven Hematite Iron and Steel Company at Cleator Moor Ironworks.

Here it was given the name Croft End after a company director’s residence.

It worked at Cleator Moor until the ironworks closed in the late 1920s.

It was moved to the Millom and Askam Hematite Iron Company’s Florence No.1 Pit, at Egremont in 1933.

In about 1937 it was moved to the company’s Millom Ironworks, where it lost its name and became simple Millom Ironworks No.3.

It was scrapped by Morgan’s of Barrow on May 7 in 1970.

The same sale also has a pair of late 1940s or 1950s railway platform enamel signs, called “totem signs” by collectors.

One from the station at Bootle, north of Millom, is expected to make £300 to £500 with a similar price likely for one from Windermere.

Some of the old Millom Ironworks steam locomotives were preserved – including David which ended up at Haverthwaite.

Perhaps the best known Millom engine was Snipey, a crane engine which worked at the Hodbarrow Iron Ore Mines.

This unique machine was saved and went into an industrial collection at Lytham, in Lancashire.