The Last Train from Southwold 1929
Southwold Railway History
http://www.southwoldmuseum.org/transport_Railway.htm
Precious post link to Southwold Railway
As featured in
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/more-curious-railways-on-british-newsreels/
I like the corner compactness of this layout, gaming as I often do tucked away onto a corner table. Another vanished Short Line, this time in Stiperstones, Shropshire.
Another stray article that caught my attention in old Railway Modeller magazines I was lent, this one by Roy Link from Railway Modeller February 1979.
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on his occasional Sidetracked blog, December 2020
Whilst I was cutting out more of the civilians from Peter Dennis’ Little Wars PaperBoys book, I thought that these figures not only look good on a toy theatre stage but they look very much like railway civilians with their bags and baggage.
With all the head and arm variants, these are highly versatile Victorian, Edwardian and early 20th Century 54mm paper card figures.
Tucked away on the platform is one of my paper suffragettes (made using one of Peter Dennis’ figure outlines for scale).
Keen eyed ‘Little Wars’ / ‘Floor Games’ fans will spot an advert for Jabz Hair Colour (as handwritten in Floor Games by Wells or G.P.W. one of his two sons).
I presume they are meant by Peter Dennis to be evacuees for the War of the Worlds element of the Little Wars PaperBoys volume of H.G. Wells, as well as civilians for Wells’ Little Wars.
The station is plastic OOHO Hornby platform, Lemax Christmas Village lantern, whilst the Halt building is our family’s old wooden farm buildings from the 1960s.
You may have seen a similar platform set up with 54mm hollowcast and new metal figures on my LWR Little Wars Railway blog post here on my Sidetracked blog in May 2020:
The train set and track is from a toy plastic battery operated Wilko Western Express bought in 2018.
Blogposted on Sidetracked by Mark Man of TIN, 21 December 2020.
Short Trip is a delightful interactive illustrated railway journey with sound, like a digital Myriorama endless landscape, by Australian based illustrator Alexander Perrin.
As quirky as the photos and short lines of the USA of my favourite railway book Mixed Train Daily, Short Trip was inspired by a real railway in Japan called the Hakone Tozan Railway https://www.hakone-tozan.co.jp/en/.
This was recently damaged in a typhoon and has now reopened – there is a charming little YouTube video about it here featuring a small Japanese boy and his toy train https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd_2-tNqWSw&feature=youtu.be
This Short Trip website was a tip off by Alan Gruber of The Duchy Of Tradgardland blog who is working on his own Garden Railway plans. Thanks Alan! Another wet morning happily sidetracked …
This is delightful – you drive or travel at your own speed, listen to the bird song, the train sounds and trolley bell at each station stop.
You can go forward or backward, right or left at your own speed.
Go slowly and look at the all fine detail of hand drawn buildings, bridges, stations and landscapes. There are moving parts ranging from tiny humanoid animal passengers, turning waterwheels and windmills to rippling water.
You can read more about its creation and creator here
https://alexanderperrin.com.au/portfolio/short-trip/
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/09/interactive-illustration-short-trip/
“It’s a magical, rickety switchback railway that ascends a forest shrouded mountain all throughout the year,” Perrin told Colossal.
“There’s something about the beautifully crafted forms of the railway in sculpted union with the cliff faces and trees that just hits such a therapeutic, aesthetic sweet spot. It’s a little bit like riding an enlarged miniature railway, if you know what I mean. You remain passive and enjoy the ride for the sake of the journey.”
Source quote: This is Colossal.com
If you are too flibbertigibbet to finish your own railway project or it’s too wet a day for a garden railway, this is just the calm thing for you.
I’m sure Heath Robinson and Rowland Emmett would approve.
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, 18 December 2020.
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
There is a donate page on the simple menu linked to PayPal if you want to reward Alexander Perrin for the fun you have had with his creation.
A couple of screenshots of this Littleworth Peterborough area light railway which looks WW1 vintage. The driver wears what looks like Army Surplus battle dress.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littleworth_railway_station
Similar light potato or farm railways
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincolnshire_potato_railways
http://www.davesrailpics.bravehost.com/nocton/nocton.htm
http://www.davesrailpics.bravehost.com/lclr/lclr.htm
Well worth watching …
There is a large amount of film material of Emett’s machines out there on newsreel and YouTube cartoonist at home 1963 https://youtu.be/vKOeP42Z2nA
Movietone film London store exhibition of the LSSR (Long Suffering to Smugglers Reach) Railway https://youtu.be/KgvRouHJiro
Emett Engines in Miniature at Brockhampton And Umbridge Railway Preservation Society https://youtu.be/vHWWkVZi1p8
Silent black and white footage of the Festival of Britain Railway
Cloud Cuckoo Valley restored https://youtu.be/yxN_2TkzAyk
And its website with links to the Rowland Emett Society
http://cloudcuckoovalley.com/rowland-emett/
Smallbrook studios Gn15 versions
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 29 May 2020
Having seen some interesting Pathe footage about the one man operation that was Port Victoria railway in the 1930s and 1940s, Alan Tradgardmastre Gruber as part of his 16mm (1/19 scale) garden railway plans asked on his blog about railway memoirs and manuals that give a ‘squad level’ picture about how a branch line runs, especially in the inter war years.
We chatted in the comments and email about inspiring films – Oh Mr Porter!, The Ghost Train, The Titfield Thunderbolt, The Railway Children – as well as various railway sitcoms such as Oh Doctor Beeching!
In terms of inspiring railway reading, I was a little more stumped about memoirs. My railway reading tends to be a little more fantastical.
The Punch illustrator and cartoonist Rowland Emett
Lots of inserting wartime railway cartoons in this Emett compilation. Emett famously designed the Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Tottering_and_Oyster_Creek_Branch_Railway
This attractive Fifties colour children’s book uses railway model layout photographs
Several other books that I find interesting are railway historian Jack Simmons’ The Victorian Railway (Thames and Hudson) and Full Steam Ahead by the BBC team that did Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm and Wartime Farm. The series is out on DVD and a few clips can be seen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07lpglf
Mixed Train Daily by Lucius Beebe and photographer C.M. Clegg is probably my favourite railway book, published in America in 1953. It is based on the vanishing Short Line Railroads of mixed freight and passenger trains that connected the rural communities, industries, small towns and workplaces of America. Many were vanishing as Clegg and Beebe hurried to ride and photograph them before they were broken up. This was much the same process as happened in Britain during the infamous Beeching era. In many parts of America, cars and freeways, airplanes and freight lorries replaced railways.
This poignant and celebratory book is worth a future blog post by itself and worth buying just for the quirky names of the railroads and the photographs.
I was pleased to find that some of the Railways photographed in the 1940s and 1950s have survived as the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA). You can look up different railroads by state, town or destination here with links to each company’s website: https://www.aslrra.org/RR_Member_Search_NM.aspx?hkey=9450250f-beac-4459-ae9c-9ed5a13a9101
The original Thomas books that circulated in my family were interesting enough scenes (colour illustrations!) and at some point I acquired Rev. Awdrys poster map of Sodor. I found Sodor fascinating, slotted in the sea between Furness in Cumbria with the Isle of Man where my late Dad had taken part in the cycle TTs in the late 1950s. Another ImagiNation. I like the theme or hashtag here on this short lived 2008 blog of Topographic Tuesday, an occasional chance to share ImagiNations maps or landscapes https://pithhelmet.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/topographic-tuesday-the-island-of-sodor/
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 27 May 2020
Lastly BBC I-Player have a small Steam Collection of BBC Archive programmes including this one by John Betjeman https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03495yn/lets-imagine-a-branch-line-railway-with-john-betjeman
In the days of pop up shops, and Peter Dennis’ Paperboys soldiers, what about a pop up book railway?
I bought this over ten years ago quite cheaply at a seaside Pound Store / remainder bookshops type shop.
Illustrations by Michael Welply. 1997 Piggy Toes Press, produced for the Book People.
Illustrator Michael Welply http://michaelwelply.com/about/ has also painted the illustrations for certain American Army related Osprey titles.
Instant railways that go round and round are always fun, even if the clockwork engine here runs down very fast.
The PRESS HERE sound card worked well enough but the tiny batteries now need replacing (housed neatly in the Station Cafe central block).
Shhh! Don’t startle the deer and the rabbits …
I like the simple American country station halt.
What delighted me about this was the pop up rural Americana buildings.
Barns, schoolhouse, railway station, town hall – straight out of Little House on the Prairie or my favourite and wistful Americana website (and Facebook page) Forgotten Georgia http://forgottengeorgia2.blogspot.com
If I had seen another of these books at the time, I’m sure I would have stripped one for buildings or stuck them down a bit more permanently and adapted them for Airfix figures.
Shootout at the station OOHO Airfix figures. My Train in a Tin sadly doesn’t run on these ‘rails’
Instead of cutting it up and sticking it all down ‘better’ I will enjoy it for the peaceful instant pop up whimsy that it is!
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on Sidetracked, his railway / gaming blog.
Sidetracked 