HOW IT STARTED
The idea of writing children's books with stories from Norwegian railways began when my daughter became interested in Chuggington, Titipo Titipo and other shows about sentient trains, and she soon wondered why there were no fairy tales about Norwegian trains. So I thought ... why not make some myself?
Inspired by countless tv-shows about living machines, Saddletank Books, Chuffalong, Tootle, Sammy the shunter, Titipo Titipo and others, I went to the library to find books on Norwegian railway history. It has taken an incredible number of hours to skim side up and side down to weed out details that can be used in a children's story. After all, children are not too interested in technical specifications and such.
I have tried to stay as historically correct as possible, but have had to make some small adjustments for dramaturgical reasons. Like the fact that there is no turntable on Tertitten anymore, but I sometimes let the locomotives turn around a to be able to peek out of the locomotive shed, for example. And I've kept Odda and Granfos in the stories, even if they left UHB in 2002. In real, they now resides at Lommedalsbanen. Maybe I will make their departure a story some day.
Not all stories are necessarily rooted in historical events and facts, some are just written to entertain children, such as the Halloween stories and Winter.
The choice to start with stories from the Urskog-Hølandsbanen fell to me easily. I had previously worked at Sørumsand and driven past these cute little locos daily for almost a year. And of course I remembered that my parents took me on a trip with Tertitten as a child.
One day I drove by, some men worked with maintenance on the rails, and right next to them stood the diesel locomotive Bingsfos. Suddenly it was as if the locomotive came alive for me, and I could clearly imagine how boring Bingsfos thought it was to just stand there and watch ... and from there the stories began to take shape.
The first stories were tested on my daughter, my husband and close friends, and were well received. I never had plans to have these stories published, but now my famiily and friends began to encourage me to do so. So I had to start with small adjustments so that it would not be too similar to anyone else's works. My stories are inspired by others, but should not be a copy after all.
I thought the scariest thing about the whole process was to tell UHB (Urskog-Hølandsbanen) about the project. For what if they didn't like the personalities I gave their locomotives? Because it is inevitable that some of them must have less charming traits to get some conflict in the stories.
But after a visit to the locomotive shed and a chat with someone who worked there, it turned out that the personalities I had given the locomotives were not so far away from how they themselves view them.
After this visit, I decided to try to realize the book project and work more purposefully towards a publication.
Then we'll see how it goes. ;-)
I fell so hard for the railway, I even ended up volunteering, so I am in close contact with my source of inspiration, getting to partake in repairs, maintenance and running these wonderful machines.
~the Author