Roger Cook and Karl Zimmerman. Magnetic North: Canadian Steam in Twilight (1999)

     Roger Cook and Karl Zimmerman. Magnetic North: Canadian Steam in Twilight (1999) In 1954 and ‘55, the authors, then teenagers, travelled from New York to Montreal and Canada to observe and photograph Canadian steam locos. Their account of their travels and their encounters with Canadian steam is evocative and personal. The photos are very good; and they were able to persuade Jim Shaughnessy, Don Wood and others to contribute photos to complement their story and illustrate the long ending of the steam era in Canada. Marie gave me this book for Christmas. It’s published by Boston Mills Press, and exhibits their usual very high standard of bookmaking, no typos, good looking page layouts, and superb photo reproduction. It's unlikely that teenaged railfans would be allowed to go on a similar quest these days. *** (2005)

Two books I didn't finish

     Kinky Friedman. When the Cat’s Away (1988) Friedman is one of those authors who thinks that obvious puns and wordplay are signs of wit and intelligence and will persuade the reader that plot, character, and narrative structure must be up to the same level. They aren’t. Or rather, they are, namely abysmally low. Didn’t finish this book, even though it was a present from RoRo, so I felt a little guilty tossing it.


     Graham Wright. Jog Rummage (1974) Billed as a fantasy in the same league as Tolkien’s work, this book is tedious in the extreme. The world Wright imagines never takes on the kind of compelling reality that a fantasy world must, else we lose interest. There are a few puzzles that I may regret never solving, such as why the world seems to be in darkness, illumined only by a Moon that occults at regular intervals, and the differences between the Rats and the Jogs, but I can live without that knowledge.

     (2005)

Four track planning books

     John Armstrong. 18 Tailor-made Track Plans (1983) I’m reading a number of track planning books. Why? Because I don’t to get down to actually building a layout, I suppose. Anyhow, these plans show how a different aspects govern or influence the plan. Lots of good ideas. Armstrong’s favourites, the double-sided backdrop and the empties in - loads out pairing of mine and power plant - show up on most plans. He also tries hard to make walk-in plans, and will accept an 18" aisle in order to achieve it. A couple of his plans could be cut up and rearranged to fit the 12'10" x 12'6" space I have available. Armstrong is always a pleasure to read. ***

     Mike Schafer ed. Railroads You Can Model (1976) A collection of good prototype information and rather strange track plans based on the railroads described. Armstrong would have done a better job. I don’t know who designed the plans. They are OK for operation, but waste space, using neither staging yards nor two-sided backdrops. The result is huge layouts, well beyond the capability of most people to build without assistance. The plans include interesting examples of how to adapt prototype track layouts to models, but otherwise this book has little value. That may be the reason it went out of print early on. *

     Linn Westcott. HO Railroad That Grows (2nd ed, 1972) The update consists partly of rewriting for clarity and concision, partly of redesign of the illustrations (including some new ones), and partly of updating the bench work and other technologies. The concept is still one of the best: write a book that follows what people actually do, namely set up a loop of track, then add to it. But show ways of changing and undoing earlier work so that the end result is a more interesting layout. I’m not sure how a novice would interpret this book. Would the bite-size projects reassure, or would the total of the work done intimidate? Anyhow, the book covers all the aspects of model railroading, and as such this book is as good as any other for introducing a neophyte to the hobby. **½

     Mike Schafer, ed. More Railroads You Can Model (1978) Better than the first book, since the plans assume a fixed space, and so show buildable layouts, whereas the first book showed assemblages of possible track plan elements. There’s also some use of two-sided backdrops and greater use of staging. The discussions of possible operations are more thorough. The Graham County RR is shown as a shelf layout with some care taken with the scenic design, the Milwaukee’s brewery branch is shown as both a shelf and a 4x8 two-deck switching pike, which would work quite well if structures were chosen to emphasise the cramped quarters of down-town railroading. But as with the first book, the real value lies more in the information about the prototype than in the track planning. Layout design has come a long way since these books were published. **½
      (2005)

Love sonnet

Love sonnet

You can’t write a love sonnet these days.
Regular rhythm & rhyme are out of fashion.
Let line and subject wander any way
they want.  You can’t limit passion
to fourteen lines.  So they say.
Now memories of your skin and hair distract
me. Your eyes, blue and grey, recall skies of fall weather,
bounded by winter’s cool and distant pact
that defines our endings. We don’t know whether
in our encounters we should yield or act.
But either way, we know we’ll be undone
by love’s illusion that we will still be one.

(2006 & 2013)

Death is Now My Neighbour (1997) TV episode

      Death is Now My Neighbour (1997, a Morse Special) A young woman is shot through a drawn blind, the murderer aiming at her silhouette. The only clue is a silly greeting card from a lover. The next morning, her neighbour, a journalist, is shot to death. Morse is in top form, and Lewis supplies the missing link when he realises that a pair of initials written down by the second victim indirectly point to the murderer. The motive for the killings derives from academic ambition: a new Master of Lonsdale College is about to be elected.
     A satisfying mix of blackmail, secrets, sex, abuse of power, and assorted minor sleaze. But if one hasn’t ever seen a Morse, one will be hard put to follow the allusive and elliptical style of narrative, which depends on the viewer’s familiarity with Oxford, Morse, Lewis and academia. The solution is plausible, and fairly solved. The acting hints at enough back story that we engage with each character, even the maid who brings the breakfast to the hotel guests. As usual, Dexter has an uncredited part, this time he says a Latin grace. A couple of bonbons: we discover Morse’s given name, and he meets a woman that’s his intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional equal. Fade-out on their arm-in-arm entry into a posh hotel.
     The episode feels like a series-ender, but there will be two more, and Lewis will apply the lessons learnt from Morse in his own career as Inspector. The series succeeds because of the consistency its fictional world, and because it pays attention to the effects of evil. We also like Morse, despite his flaws. Or because of them. Take your pick. This is the third of fourth time we’ve watched this episode. It wears very well. ***

W. A. D. Strickland. Chronicles of a Garden Railway (1968)

     W. A. D. Strickland. Chronicles of a Garden Railway (1968) Strickland is an engineer, and it show. He doesn’t tell us enough about some things, and too much about others. The organisation of the book is somewhat haphazard, too. However, the personal tone, the odd flashes of family history, and so on, make up for these formal faults, and the result is a charming chronicle, just as the title promises. As with many English books, the illustrations are either badly or not at all keyed to the text,  it’s as if the person responsible for the pictures hadn’t read the book. The technology of garden railways has much improved since Strickland built his 4mm scale, 16.5mm gauge layout, but I doubt that anyone today has had any more fun building and operating a garden railway. It’s quite clear that it was a family hobby. It helped that Strickland, like his wife, was an avid gardener. The information about suitable plants is worth the price of the book (15/- or 75p in 1971). ** (2005)

D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling 2nd rev. ed. (1978)

     D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling 2nd rev. ed. (1978) Donald Boreham represents the old school of railway modellers rather than model railroaders, though he does admit to a liking for prototypical operation. His book is short on technical details (especially drawings; the descriptions are sometimes less than clear), and long on anecdote and personal observations, all which makes for a charming and randomly useful book. As is so often the case, the photos have little or no relation to the text. The drawings of miscellaneous Welsh and other prototypes at the back however are worth the price of the book. ** (2005)