Gil Mellé's sound and light device

Sound & light device by Gil Mellé; RMC Mar '62

It appears that Gil Mellé was starting to experiment with electronic music in 1959 and 1960. I wondered if there was any spillover into his model railroading work. All I could find was an article called Easy to Build Sound Light Unit in the March 1962 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman.

As the article's title says, the device creates sound and lighting effects, and can be inserted in just about any HO scale industrial model to give it an extra dose of realism. The article notes it generates sawing or grinding noises, erratic hammering noises, the sounds of motors, regular interior lighting, sparks of light as if coming from welding or grinding equipment, and diffuse light. Interestingly it isn't an electronic device, but an electro-mechanical one, in the spirit of those that can be found in Adolph Frank's Animated Scale Models Handbook.