Today, we have some 19th Century oddities in the form of some semaphore towers. Before the advent of wireless or telephones, semaphore towers were used to transmit messages over long distances, far faster than runners or even mounted messengers could manage. There were several systems, but one very common one was the Chappe system which used two wooden arms mounted on a crossbar – the angles of the three components resulted in the following alphabet:
Our four models come from different parts of the world – the Chatley Heath tower was part of the London-Portsmouth line, while we also have models from France, Malta and India (in case anyone thinks it looks odd, the Indian tower is much larger than the others, and the doors/windows were also larger – it's still the same scale). Each model is supplied with a random signal arm (we have the letters 'B', 'R', 'I', 'G', 'A', 'D' and 'E' available) but scratch-building others from plastic strip should be a straightforward task.
SSS-8124 – Chatley Heath Tower – £1.25 GBP
SSS-8125 – Chappe Tower – £0.75 GBP
SSS-8126 – Maltese Tower – £1.00 GBP
SSS-8127 – Indian Tower – £1.50 GBP
