Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Book Review: The Hellingly Hospital Railway by Peter A Harding

If you know my model making output, you'll be surprised to see this book being reviewed on the blog - after all, it's the one that inspired me to build a model of The Hellingly Hospital Railway years ago.

This review is simply to point readers interested in unusual railway lines at the recently revised edition. Peter got in touch with me and borrowed a big box of photographs and research notes put together when I was building and exhibiting the model. This has allowed him to update the text a bit. There are also several more photos added since the 1989 version was published.

One of the big revelations appears on page 20, where the photo of tramcar and electric loco is printed in full - it was cropped to length in the older book - and now shows the front of the weigh bridge hut. I spent years looking for details of this building for my model! I'm now relieved to see I didn't do such a bad job after all.

For the price, even if you have an older copy, it's worth getting the latest version. Judging by the interest my model generated and amazing number of people who knew the line personally, I hope it sells well.

The Hellingly Hospital Railway is available direct from the author:
Peter A Harding, "Mossgiel", Bagshot Road, Knaphill, Woking, Surrey, GU21 2SG
Price: £4.00 plus 50p post & packing

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I bought this book following the article about your hellingly model in Model Rail. I live not far from hellingly and have a hospital railway under construction. The book is fascinating! I had worked out much of the layout for hellingly from the film "Smokescreen" With genial harry grout from porridge playing an insurance investigator and deryck guyler as station master.

Phil Parker said...

Sounds like a movie I want to track down. Thanks for the info.

Unknown said...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hi-Jackers-Smokescreen-DVD-Anthony-Booth/dp/B003IKKJK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1407354518&sr=1-1&keywords=smokescreen

Unknown said...
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