Nor is it a stop on the Gan, rather it is a watering point which may have been called Station 68 on the Atbara line in the Sudan as I recall it looking some 60+ years ago.Having been seeking in vain for gazelles on the Surrey savannahs these last few weeks I have been driven once again to raid my earliest memories for a theme. Somehow those early memories are the ones that made the deepest immersions. So I am pretty sure this would have been the view looking south, except I don't think there were any hills. I introduced that because I wanted an arc to play against the rectangle.
This is my second attempt at rendering the impression this water tower made on me. The first time round I also showed some camels drinking from a tank at ground level and that lost the focus. So I have stripped it back, to show a man made object in the middle of "miles and miles of bloody Africa." I will paint the camels separately some time.
When the movie "2001" came out I was struck by the monolith because it reminded me of this water tower that rose up enigmatically in empty desert. Something alien. There was a signal box near by because this water point was on a loop and I suppose they had to let trains in the other direction know where this one was. The line disappeared into the distance and seemed to be half buried by drifting sand, as I have shown it.
There was a tree there as well, probably growing from the water spillage from the tower. or from the tank
Little girls would appear from goodness knows where - there was no visible settlement - to offer snacks, food covers and fly whisks. Passengers would disembark while the engine topped up its water tanks.
