Passionate model railway fan Sir Rod Stewart has donated £10,000 to a club whose 'priceless' exhibition was destroyed by yobs over the weekend.
Well-wishers have already raised more than £60,000 to help Market Deeping Model Railway Club, in Lincolnshire, after vandals went on a rampage over the weekend, breaking into the school where its annual show was taking place and trashing their sets.
The club has been blown away today by a flood of donations on a Just Giving website that was set up aiming to bring in just £500 to help 'get them back on their feet'.
Exhibits worth tens of thousands of pounds were destroyed after vandals broke into a school in Lincolnshire and smashed up models belonging to Market Deeping Model Railway Club
Four youths were arrested on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage and have since been released on conditional bail. Above: A destroyed model lies on the floor of the school hall
Model railway enthusiast Sir Rod Stewart, pictured with a huge set from his Beverley Hills home, has donated £10,000 to Market Deeping Model Railway Club after vandals destroyed their exhibits at their annual show over the weekend
Sir Rod, 74, has been a huge fan of trains since his childhood growing up in north London and watching them from his window. He is pictured at Toronto Railway Historical Association
'We had to abandon the whole thing because it was it was scene of total devastation,' said the club chairman. This picture shows the scale of the damage, with flipped tables and chairs
Members of the Lincolnshire-based club were left devastated after the destruction led to the cancellation of the model railway event at Stamford Welland Academy
Well-wishers have already raised more than £60,000 to help repair and replace the models and stars including Sir Rod Stewart and DJ Pete Waterman have pledged their support
Sir Rod, who made a film earlier this year about his own 100ft model railway at his Beverley Hills home in California, also called on his friends and fellow enthusiasts Jools Holland and The Who's Roger Daltrey to follow his example.
The 74-year-old musician said: 'I was absolutely devastated to hear that vandals had destroyed what was to be a lovely show by the Market Deeping Model Railway Club over the weekend.
'The collection was priceless and I am donating £10,000 to help compensate those affected and asking fellow enthusiasts Jools Holland, Roger Daltrey and others to do the same. It took me 23 years to build my model railway so I feel their pain.'
Sir Rod has even built a scale model of New York's Grand Central station in his US pad and, speaking in his film, said he wants people to treat it with respect, adding: 'Don't say it's a 'train set'. It is a scale-model railway.'
He has previously revealed his interest in the hobby came from when he lived above a newsagent's with his parents in Highgate, north London, and would watch trains from his window.
Music producer and DJ Pete Waterman, 72, who has been a model railway enthusiast for 60 years, told MailOnline many of the members of the club will be heartbroken after 'losing their life's work'.
He said: 'I'm just speechless. It's a lifetime of work. I know one guy who had one engine there worth £5,500, and he has lost five engines in total. The reason they are so valuable is they take so long to build, and if you give someone £5,000 again now, they wouldn't build it again.
'If I had walked in and seen that, that would have been me finished. I would have got into my car and said 'enough'. This is a hobby that has got me through some terrible times. The pleasure of it is building something and seeing it work, as well as the social side of it.'
Music producer and DJ Pete Waterman, 72, who has been a model railway enthusiast for 60 years, told MailOnline many of the members of the club will be heartbroken after 'losing their life's work'. He said: 'I'm just speechless. It's a lifetime of work. I know one guy who had one engine there worth £5,500, and he has lost five engines in total. The reason they are so valuable is they take so long to build, and if you give someone £5,000 again now, they wouldn't build it again
Pictured is Paul Andrews from P & D Marsh Model Railway club who had brought his own models to the exhibition only to see them destroyed. Club chairman Peter Davies said there were 'grown men in tears' following the vandalism
The vandals smashed more than 500 or Mr Andrews' 600 display items, featuring trains and train set accessories such as cars, animals, people and telegraph poles
Mr Andrews had model railway sets as early as he can remember as a child, and began making them himself when his oldest child Louis, now 35, was interested in Thomas The Tank Engine. Above: Some of Mr Andrews's destroyed models
Mr Andrews said the destruction was 'mindless'. 'It's depressing. It's frustrating someone has destroyed a big chunk of my business,' he added
The models which Mr Andrews constructed were painstakingly constructed over hundreds of hours but were smashed to pieces in just a few minutes
Smashed to peices: Mr Andrews's models lie in ruins at the school after vandals broke in and destroyed them overnight
Above: the extraordinary level of detail in the models, which will now need to be replaced at great expense of time and money
Mr Waterman said he had donated to the club's appeal, although declined to say how much. He added he would invite them to have a prominent role at the Warley Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC Arena in Birmingham that he is president of, set to take place in November.
He added: 'I've no idea what makes four young kids break into a school and do this. We've had some ideas about forming working parties and going down there [to Market Deeping] and helping them rebuild. But a lot of these guys have had their hearts broken. It's like when a child has a favourite toy and you come along and stamp on it.
'This is just out of the norm. I've been doing shows for 40 years and I can probably name the amount of times something has even been pinched from a show because it's happened so few times.'
Mr Waterman has a 'massive' collection worth millions of pounds that he has been working on for 18 years that is still unfinished.
He sold 10 per cent of his collection for £600,000 in 2015 to help secure the future of the Waterman Railway Heritage Trust.
Club president Colin Brown, 85, called Sir Rod's gesture 'amazing' and praised the model train 'fraternity' for being so tight-knit.
MailOnline has approached representatives for Mr Holland and Mr Daltrey to see if they will match Sir Rod's donation.
Four youths were arrested on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage and have since been released on conditional bail. Police confirmed they were four boys, with one aged 16 and the other three aged 15.
Speaking about Sir Rod's donation, Mr Brown, a former private railway industry worker, said: 'It's amazing how people like Rod Stewart have donated. That's a big help from him.
The trail of destruction leaving railway enthusiasts distraught. But today the club has been blown away today by a flood of donations on a Just Giving website that was set up aiming to bring in just £500 to help 'get them back on their feet'
Bill Sowerby and Alan Hancock from the Market Deeping Model Railway Club in Sleaford, 2018, with one of their model railway constructions. In the picture below Bill and Alan, stand over a their ruined railway costing them years of work
Peter Davis (left) and Bill Sowerby from Market Deeping Model Railway Club lost years of work in the raid at Stamford Welland Academy in Stamford on Saturday. Its chairman Peter Davies, 70, said exhibits were smashed, thrown around and stamped on, including a locomotive unit worth about £8,500
Above: wrecked models of railway sidings and buildings lie on a table, with their distraught owners barely able to look
'It's the fraternity with model railways. We are rude to each other and take the mickey out of each other, but we sit together.
