Tiger-Tracks again

“These things are becoming a tradition,” said Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”), like me a retired bus-driver from Regional Transit Service (RTS).
We attended the “Tiger-Tracks” model-train show yesterday (Saturday, December 13th, 2014) at Rochester Institute of Technology. I guess the tiger is its mascot; the show is put on by RIT’s model-railroad club.
It’s a massive show, the best I’ve been to, but I’ve only been to one other.
It’s held in RIT’s field-house, site of basketball and ice-hockey games.
Vendors bring lots of stuff to sell, and model-railroad clubs set up working model-railroads.
Gary is working on his own model-railroad. I can’t get interested; what I prefer is the real thing.
Model-railroads are always a compromise. Curvature is way tighter than reality. It has to be to fit.
To model a real railroad feature, like Horseshoe Curve, you’d need an entire basement, or maybe an airport-hanger.
Model trains also operate unrealistically. A passenger-train on a model-railroad would continuously throw passengers to the floor.
Curves are way tighter than reality, and model-trains negotiate them at improbable speeds.
There also is starting and stopping. A real train starts and stops at a crawl. Model trains suddenly lurch into motion, or lurch to a stop.
A friend and I once measured the scale speed of a passenger-train. It got up to 250 mph, and stopped from that speed in about 100 scale feet.
There also are the trains themselves. Real trains might have 100 or more cars, and be over a mile long. Such trains might get by with only two or three diesel-locomotive units.
With model trains you’re doing good if you can get one locomotive to pull 20 cars. —And don’t ask it to climb a grade, and grades on model-railroads are usually way steeper than reality; in which case a big hand drops from the sky to help the train up the grade.
Model trains have gotten much more realistic than years ago when I last fooled with them as a teenager. That was the time of 250-mph passenger-trains that stopped on a dime.
Trains start and stop more realistically, but still more quickly than reality.
I also saw trains at this show of more than 20 cars. When I was fooling around with them, a single locomotive might max out at seven cars.
There also is individual train-control.
Years ago you varied the current in the track to vary train-speed, plus you could only run one train at a time on a single track.
Put two trains on that track, and both would start and stop at the same time, and if one was faster than the other, it would catch up with the other train, and bunt it in the caboose.
Now the track is fully energized, and the locomotives run by computer-controller. Individual locomotives are signaled to take the current needed to operate as desired. —Which means you can run two trains individually on the same track.
This is much more like reality. In the real world the track isn’t energized. Multiple trains run individually on the same track, although a dispatcher keeps them from smashing into each other.
So model-trains are much more realistic, although still far from reality.
I watched a steam locomotive with synchronized “chuff-chuff” sound. It actually synchronized with side-rod motion, just like a real steam-engine.
The steam-locomotives also emit puffs of smoke from their stacks, but it smells like burnt wax, not coal. And it’s not as dense as what one sees in reality.
Back-and-forth we went, down one aisle then up another, picking through the effluvia.
We are both rather lame, me with a bad knee, and Colvin using a cane. We hobble slowly. I don’t think we covered as much as previous shows.
Gary bought a few small bitsa, plus a tool. He shows me the bitsa, and I have no idea what I’m looking at.

The greatest railroad locomotive ever built! (Photo by Bobbalew.)

I came away from this show a few years ago with the HO GG-1 model pictured.
35 buckaroos; not bad for a working HO model of the greatest railroad locomotive EVER.
It’s not exactly what I wanted. It’s Tuscan (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”) red instead a Brunswick-green, the color I always saw.
And it’s the original gold “cat-whisker” scheme of five gold pinstripes, not the yellow single stripe I usually saw (the second paint-scheme).
I have since bought another HO GG-1, Brunswick-green with the single yellow stripe. But the number-fonts aren’t the same as the letters, and they should be.
At least the proportions are right on both engines. I’ve seen shortened HO GG-1 models made to negotiate tight curvature. I’ve even seen the GG-1 body on E-unit trucks. (Criminy!)
Colvin’s brother-in-law was with us, and seemed fairly impressed. It’s a big show, with a lot of what I call “junk.” Crates of dusty bitsa, and gigantic old Lionel collections.
But I don’t know as it’s junk, if you’re interested in model-railroading.
Chasing the real thing is a five-hour drive for me, but usually it’s productive.
I’m talking about Altoona, PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain.
It’s now Norfolk Southern, but still quite busy. Busy enough to cause problems; trains use the same track, and there isn’t much.
There are two railroads that serve the east-coast megalopolis, CSX across New York, and Norfolk Southern across PA. Both move a lot of freight, and now freight from east-coast ports is moving inland.
Be that as it may, model-railroading exists in a dreamworld: lots of track, way more than reality. The world outside a model-railroad seems minuscule; the modelers are more interested in running trains.
I noticed many of those in attendance were old geezers like Gary and me. Still in love with the dreamworld engendered by model trains.
The guy who daycares my dog wondered why I attended this show when I prefer the real thing. “Because I like hanging around with Gary,” I said.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.