A late Birthday present

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and much to my surprise, a late present just turned up from my wife. This book. The third edition of Ken Hartley and Paul Ingham's book on the Sand Hutton Light Railway.

Happy Birthday to me.

The first edition of the Ken Hartley book, published in 1962 by the NGRS still resides in my collection, a small thin paperback.
I also had a copy of the 2nd edition from 1982. A somewhat bigger book than the first. It got lost when I emigrated to the USA some 20 years ago. Both books are a far cry from this magnificent tome. Hard backed, and in full colour with superbly reproduced photographs, drawings, and maps. A treat to look at.
Though I call myself a fan of the work of Sir Arthur Heywood. It's very probably more the work of Sir Robert Walker and the Sand Hutton that has inspired my layouts.
There was one particular image in previous editions of the book of the freight terminus at Claxton that had a huge influence on a previous Gn15 layout of mine. I built a model of the goods shed based on the end view in this picture. The barn I used for my working crane feature appears in the background of this image.
Finally, the caption of the photograph says it all. "Claxton terminus, abutting on Whinny Lane". Just seeing that name in print makes me nostalgic for that old layout of mine. Much of that model was inspired by just that one picture.

That image is in this book, and reprinted with such clarity I feel like I'm looking at it for the first time. There are many inspirational images in this book. Pictures that are familiar to me from the first books and others that I have never seen before. There's one of a short train leaving the yard at Warthill station and crossing a road that just screams out. "Model me!"
It's going to be very difficult to resist some of these cries from the pictures, I can tell you.