The Model-Railway Men

Mark’s model-railway was the most important thing in the world to him. It was

not just a toy but a carefully worked out system designed to operate as like the

real thing as possible. And for Mark, of course, the real thing meant the Southern

and L.M.S. railways in the great age of steam. But what Mark did not realise,

until he saw the pullover, was that he and his father were not the only ‘steam’

enthusiasts in the house.

The pullover was so small as it lay on a bench at the end of a station platform on

his railway. Old, torn and grubby as it was, and much too tiny even for a doll to

wear, Mark realised at once that it was a real pullover. So he waited motionless,

hardly daring to breathe, for it owner to come and claim it. That was how he met

the first of the model-railway men, Telford.

“Smoke and steam and the smell of oil” were what Telford and his sons and

grandsons loved and soon Mark was learning things from them about his railway

that he had never known before. But the railway people were a big responsibility,

too. They had to be kept hidden from his parents. They had to be helped

to get their food and water and replacements for their worn-out clothes. And it

was not always easy to help them for they were fiercely independent and sometimes

rashly brave. There were times too when Mark resented their ‘bossing’ and

tried—sometimes with disastrous results—to get his own way in spite of them.

But even at the worst, like the night when they had to send out an S.O.S. to save

Gresley’s life, knowing them brought Mark that special kind of friendship only

fellow enthusiasts share.