I caught an episode of the classic show “Ellery Queen: Whodunnit” the other night which was about an inventor working on an automatic control system which he was testing on his model railroad. The layout looked to be O gauge. Would I be right in thinking it was Lionel? The episde was entitled “The Adventure of the Eccentric Engineer”. Some info is available on the BBC website:-
Lionel trains are indeed used by the “eccentric engineer” portrayed by Ed McMahon. The 624 C&O switcher & the 53 Rio Grande play parts as well. The engineer has his “shed/garage/lab” & house connected by an underground/concealed O gauge railroad. I am going by memory here - I only saw the show once when it aired originally in 1976.
This episode had an All-star cast too.
Rob
I loved that episode - actually the whole series. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long enough to get into rerun syndication - I haven’t seen it aired in this country since then. As I remember (and it was long ago, so I might not have this exactly) he was using the train as a cover for his next invention, somehow the train layout was his development tool. Love to see it again.
Enjoy
Paul
Thanks for your replies, guys. It’s a shame the BBC haven’t put it on i-player, though I suspect this is for copyright reasons. As it was on late at night, I did record it on my DVD recorder, but only only analogue and poor quality reception where I live to boot.
It wasn’t a BBC series, but an American series.
Though the last time I saw it in syndication was the early 90s (on A&E) I have heard that some episodes are shown occasionally on TV Land at O-Dark-30.
These have not been released by a studio, but the series can be found as a gray market (lapsed copyrights) release on eBay. Nostalgia Merchant (nostalgiamerchant.biz) at one time to sold it in two episode increments, but their website shows it bundled as a complete series.
The ultimate Ellery Queen show website is: http://www.elleryqueenshow.com/