LIGHTS, CAMERA...
DI Sonny Russell's railway carriage home
A slight change in direction with this post. It may not be commonly known that the series of DI Sonny Russell crime novels were inspired by a model railway. For my sins, I model narrow gauge railways - the sort of quirky backwater affairs that were built when there wasn't the cash for a standard gauge railway.
Gull's eye view
My inspiration, for several layouts, has been the Rye and Camber Tram, a three foot gauge line that ran for all of 1 3/4 miles from just outside Rye and ended up in what is now the Rye Golf Club. It lasted from 1895 until 1939 when taken over by the government to carry parts for the PLUTO project. After the war it was so run down that it was sold for scrap. Al that is left is the intermediate, Golf Links station building a some track set in concrete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_and_Camber_Tramway
A visit we made in the centenary.
Anyway, back to the title of this blog. I took the layout to an exhibition last Saturday. This was the first time that the extension - a definite nod to the R&CT - was to be exhibited. All went well until I tried turning on the lighting. The original LED light pipe over the main Compass Point board worked but the new one over the Shinglesea Halt extension failed. Fuses and connections were checked, to no avail, so that end of the layout remained unlit. However, people commented that it gave it a moody feel and it looked like a storm was brewing.
A storm is brewing over Shinglesea Halt
I returned home, ready to fire off a letter of complaint. Imagine my surprise - and embarrassment - when I checked the light one last time and found a concealed switch on the body! Now I can choose between a moody or sunlit sky.
Compass Point
That's really cool, having your model railway be the inspiration for a novel series. I take it you're friends with Mr. O'Donnoghue?
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I am Chris O’Donoghue! Have we met?
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