Fogman and Brazier

Not a detective series or a firm of solicitors but one of my favourite Railway figures – fogman, hut and brazier.

I have bought several of these attractive PECO packs for my Railway civilians. lovely figure and great little fire effect using red and silver sweet wrapper type paper.

Reading through my stash of old railway magazine clippings in my scrapbook, I found this imaginative small tale or short story by B. Willcocks. Sadly   I cannot remember which magazine it came from c. 1970s/80s.

I often wonder about the conversations, thoughts and back stories of the figures glimpsed on railway layouts.

What is a fogman?

A “fogman” was a person in charge of fog signals on a railway track or system. Uup to the 1950s, the fogman would stand offside the rail tracks with a lantern to signal “go slow” to the train driver.

A railway detonator (torpedo in North America) is a coin-sized device that is used to make a loud sound as a warning signal to train drivers. It is placed on the top of the rail, usually secured with two lead straps, one on each side. When the wheel of the train passes over, it explodes emitting a loud bang. It was invented in 1841 by English inventor Edward Alfred Cowper.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detonator_(railway)

A different type of explosives for trains than usually featured on Sidetracked.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on Sidetracked blog, December 2017.