Tiger-Tracks IV

The other day (Sunday, December 9th, 2012) I attended the Tiger-Tracks model-train show my fourth time.
The Tiger-Tracks model-train show is at Rochester Institute of Technology.
My first time was five years ago. I attended with Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), the retired transit bus-driver with fairly severe Parkinson’s Disease.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. Which is where Art was also a bus-driver. —My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired from RTS on medical-disability.
I’m not much into model-trains — I prefer the real thing — but Dana was a model-train buff.
Dana has since died, but he had a small layout of HO track in his basement.
It was very rudimentary, and about all he did was run his model-trains on it. It was just a circle of track; two parallel circles actually.
His table was about five feet by nine, a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood with extensions.
I remember an extensive S-gauge layout with scenery when he lived in Rochester.
Now he was living as an invalid with his sister in a Rochester suburb.
It was kind of sad. I don’t know what happened to that S-gauge layout.
By then Dana was on the downhill slide. That HO layout in his basement was a last hurrah.
Dana wanted to go to Tiger-Tracks, and asked if I would take him. —He also thought I might be interested.
I agreed.
Dana came away with a set of maybe five-or-six 1920s Santa Fe passenger-cars, dark olive-green, almost black.
He had a Santa Fe steam-engine he planned to pull them with.
The Santa Fe passenger-cars were nice, plastic and well-modeled.
HO model-train equipment can look pretty good.
It’s a shame his Santa Fe steam-engine was not as attractive.
It was a generic steam-engine actually based on the Santa Fe 4-8-4.
But I also remember he had a Union Pacific steamer based on the same model. It wasn’t a Union Pacific 800-series. It was the Santa Fe 4-8-4 with Union Pacific lettering.
Beyond that the side-rods on his Santa Fe steamer were all wonky.
I doubt he ever ran it. One driver-set was 180 degrees out of phase. Its side-rod aimed up when the others were down.
Maybe it would run, but if so the rods weren’t right.
My second time at Tiger-Tracks was two years later, this time with Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”), another retired transit bus-driver.
By now Dana was gone, but Tiger-Tracks was so impressive I invited Colvin.

My GG1 model. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Visit number-two was when I got my GG1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because Dana was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”) model (above).
Anyone who reads this here blog knows by now I consider the GG1 the greatest railroad-locomotive of all time.
I had seen GG1 models my first visit with Dana, but didn’t buy one.
I brought along $100 with Colvin, hoping to buy a GG1 model.
I had a feeler out searching for a GG1 model, my mower-man, who is also a model-train buff.
He called around, but was unable to find what I wanted, the GG1s I saw at the first show. (They probably were from outta state; Tiger-Tracks attracts out-of-state vendors.)
My mower-man found a GG1 model, but its proportions were wrong.
It was shortened quite a bit to make it operable on a model-railroad, which has curvature much tighter than real.
I passed. By then I had already purchased the model pictured, which was the wrong color, but the correct proportions.
I would have preferred a GG1 model in Brunswick Green with the single-stripe scheme I saw so much as a teenager, although I was willing to have my mower-man repaint to the single-stripe scheme on Brunswick Green.
Which was what he was willing to do with what he obtained, but that model was not scale.
(I’ve seen worse, for example a GG1 body on EMD E-unit trucks.)
We saw a few GG1 models at Tiger-Tracks, both O-gauge and N-gauge.
O was gigantic, and N was too small.
We did find an HO GG1 model, but it was Amtrak colors, silver with a red stripe.
No way would I want an Amtrak GG1, and it also was not that good.
The one I bought was the wrong color, and the cat-whisker scheme, but very well done.
I caved when the seller offered it for $30.
That’s the only thing I’ve ever bought at Tiger-Tracks. That and a picture-book.
Gary’s been to that show three times now, and he always buys something.
Usually I just walk around with Gary, semi-interested, but I haven’t bought anything since that GG1.
I went to another model-train show last Winter. But it was depressing compared to Tiger-Tracks.
Tiger-Tracks is in a fabulous venue; lots of open space.
There are layouts galore, including a live-steam exhibition. With this the models are actually steam-engines. Instead of electric-motors, the engines have tiny fires that boil water into steam.
The fires might be fueled by alcohol, but I’ve seen pulverized coal.
Model-railroaders are obsessed with realism. Model steam-locomotives often have smoke drifting out the stack.
Accompanied by the putrid stench of burning wax. Compare this to the fragrant aroma of a real steam-engine burning coal.
The model steam-engines also emit sound, a recording of the chuff-chuff.
But often the chuff-chuff is out-of-phase with the drivers. A typical two-cylinder steam-locomotive chuffs four beats per driver rotation. The recording is usually too slow or too fast.
Another problem with model-railroads is unrealistic operation. Once-in-a-while you see a model-train moving slowly, as slowly as a real train.
And pulling 25-30 cars, as opposed to only four-to-six. (A real train might be over 100 cars.)
I remember seeing a PCC streetcar tearing pointlessly around a tiny loop at 89 bazilyun miles-per-hour.
A friend and I did the math once. His Athearn (“ah-THURN;” as in “as”) Budd RDC, a great-looking model, was doing 250 scale mph, and stopping from that speed in about 100 scale feet.
Do that in the real world, or even close, and your passengers end up on the floor, slid into a squalling heap at a bulkhead.
But my mower-man says he never does well at Tiger-Tracks. He sets up as a vendor, but doesn’t sell much.
Tiger-Tracks is a gigantic show of model-railroad equipment for sale, much of it very interesting.
But I’m told nothing much sells.
And a lot of it was from broken up model railroads of passed-away buffs. Boxes of junk and dusty detritus — lots of twisted wires.
What Tiger-Tracks really is is a conglomeration of layouts for Grandpop and the grandchildren. “Here look Johnny; look at the smoke, hear the whistle.”
And adults who have never grown up.
A lot of what’s for sale is antique Lionel equipment — a throwback for boomers.
My mower-man sells some of that, but is into everything.

• I had a stroke nineteen years ago from which I pretty much recovered.
• “O,” “S,” “HO,” and “N” gauges compared: O is largest, near 1:45.2, S is a bit smaller at 1:64, “HO” (half-O) is 1:87.1, and “N” is smallest at 1:148 to 1:160 (depending on the manufacturer or country). Lionel used three-rail O-gauge for its toy-trains, although the railroad equipment was at a smaller scale; and American Flyer (toy-trains) used two-rail S-gauge. The smaller scales (HO and N) can look pretty good, although track curvature can’t be as wide as it is in reality. I saw a model of world-famous Horseshoe Curve in Pennsylvania once, and it was obviously a model, as properly modeled Horseshoe Curve would have taken an entire cellar. —There are scales even larger and smaller than O and N.
• “The cat-whisker scheme” of five gold pin-stripes is the original paint-scheme developed by Raymond Loewy.
• “PCC” stands for Presidents’ Conference Committee, an attempt by trolley and streetcar lines to modernize trolley-cars.
• “RDC” stands for Rail-diesel-car, a diesel-powered self-propelled passenger-car manufactured by Budd Company of Philadelphia.