A thing which I have read about, but never actually seen at first hand: a situation which it seems might be remedied, but at a high financial cost (see further on). A humorous strip-cartoon work by Carl Robert Fallberg (1915 -- 1996): artist and cartoonist for the Disney organisation, and railway enthusiast. The long-running strip concerned the -- dreamt-up by Fallberg -- Fiddletown & Copperopolis Railroad: a narrow-gauge (one assumes 3ft.) concern in a remote "way out west" location -- described by those who know this work, as a kind of distillation of all that was most zany and delightful about the narrow gauge in the West of the USA. Fallberg produced this saga, at length, during the 1940s; it appeared serially in the US's Railroad magazine. A thing with which I would love to become acquainted; book-form publication has occurred, one gathers -- but it would seem certain that to afford the price of such a book, one would need to win the Lottery, or all but.
And a fictional-railways thing for me, of a different kind. I quote from C.S. Small's 1959 book Far Wheels, in its chapter about the metre-gauge route between Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Djibouti. "[said railway] and the country of Ethiopia have been savagely caricatured by Evelyn Waugh in his two books Scoop and Black Mischief, but these vitriolic satires are certainly not representative of the country and the railroad today."
Waugh would seem to be one of those artistic creators whose work people tend to love, or hate, immoderately (C.S. Small, above, does not seem to harbour any affection for his stuff). My standpoint concerning him, is different again -- his two novels named above, are to the best of my knowledge the only things by him which I have ever read (that was many decades ago). I remember very little indeed, about either -- including no recollection at all, of the railway-related elements in them ! -- seem to recollect that I was basically "meh" about the novels: neither bowled-over, nor repulsed and nauseated. One gathers that part of the fun of Waugh for enthusiasts for his work: is that he was a highly misanthropic individual; which he "goes to town on" in his writings -- and it would appear that he was also in his personal life and dealings, one of the nastier persons who have ever lived. His general outlook on life was extremely right-wing and "I hate the stinking rabble..." I think it can be said with certainty, that he did not hold black people in high regard; but his scorn was poured out on many other categories of mankind also. (Finding out some of these things about Waugh -- plus, not having been hugely impressed by the two novels which I did read -- has caused me never to look at anything else written by him, or to wish to.) In some respects he was "a man of his time" -- if he were writing this stuff and trying to get it published nowadays, one reckons that he would be universally shunned and rejected; however, a fair few people reacted to his writings with some dismay, even in his heyday most of a century ago. Impression got, that quite a number of the numerous devotees of Waugh's work: are devotees thus, for its form rather than its content.
Scoop and Black Mischief were both written round about the time of Italy's invasion and (brief) conquest of Ethiopia in the later 1930s. Different narratives about different fictional black-ruled African countries ("Azania", and "Ishmaelia"); which are both, however, identifiable in character, and roughly geography-wise, with Ethiopia. As said, I have forgotten almost all of the details of both -- but the central theme of them is generally acknowledged to be: fluctuation between low comedy, and horror; on the general thesis that black folk are not competent to govern countries. (Waugh actually spent time in Ethiopia as a newspaper correspondent on Italy's war of conquest -- his personal view seems to have been that the Italians were doing Ethiopia a kindness by taking it over and civilising it. It is reckoned that in his time spent there, he experienced the Addis -- Djibouti railway at first-hand.)
I find it frustrating that I recall nothing about the "railway" episodes in the two books: I suspect thus, that it must have been something else which first brought them to my notice. One takes it that this aspect of the novels, would have been Waugh having fun telling about rail operation of a degree of probably often lethal incompetence, which would make Percy French's West Clare Railway look in comparison, like a model of the greatest efficiency and dispatch.
Has anyone else by any chance, come across these novels by Waugh; and perhaps, recalls more about them than I do?