Syracuse model-train show

Syracuse model-train show

Fun for kids. (iPhone photo [gasp] by BobbaLew.)

“Tell Bob your favorite track gauge.”
My friend was asking me to tell his friend my favorite gauge of railroad track.
We were headed to a gigantic model-train show in Syracuse.
“Four feet, 8&1/2 inches,” I said, the gauge of a full-size railroad.
Model-train gauges run the gamut. Most common are HO and to some extent N. HO is 16.5 mm (0.64961 inches) between the rails, and N is 9 mm (0.354 inches).
HO is fairly realistic, and N more realistic due to its smaller scale.
“There’s nothing like the real thing,” I said later.
“But I can’t put the real thing in my cellar,” my friend said.
Model-trains can be fairly realistic, but to properly model the real thing, ya need much more space.
To properly model Pennsylvania Railroad’s Horseshoe Curve, ya’d need an airport hanger.
And ya wouldn’t have much track. Horseshoe Curve was once four tracks — now it’s three. But that’s only four tracks with no switches; not much to operate.
Model-train layouts can’t be much like real railroads. Curvature has to be way tighter than reality, enough to derail a real train.
I did model-trains as a child. I had a Lionel set, and helped a neighbor friend build a fairly large HO layout in his basement.
He had a plastic Athearn Budd RDC. Athearn was the model-maker; a Budd RDC was a self-propelled Rail Diesel Car built by Budd Company of Philadelphia. It could be configured as a coach.
In operation that Athearn RDC was capable of 250 scale mph, and station-stopped on a dime. —Quick enough to hurl passengers out of the seats with great force.
His layout had a climbing loop; it was two levels.
The loop had to fit within the width of a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood, so curvature was extremely tight.
The grade was so steep a single locomotive would stall with only four cars. At which point a giant hand descended from the heavens to help the train up the grade.
N-gauge would be better. Curvature would still be tight, but the grade not as steep. A single locomotive might get 10 cars up the grade.
Real trains might be 100 cars or more, often over a mile long. And they don’t climb grades assisted by a big hand.
We walked into the show in a giant display venue at the NY State Fairgrounds.
Right away I noticed the smell of burning wax, used to puff smoke from model steam-locomotive stacks.
Mostly the show was layouts, quite a few with antique Lionel equipment.
Many were HO, some were N, and there were others, like tiny Z-gauge (6.5 mm/0.256 inches) or gigantic G-gauge (45 mm/1.772 inches).
Lionel is O-gauge, 1&1/4 inches/32 mm apart. That is, the track is, but models smaller in scale. Rail equipment modeled in O-gauge is quite large.
HO is half O. My Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 model is HO.
There also was a railroad for kids to ride. That’s my lede photograph.
An old geezer sat atop a model locomotive pulling six or seven cars. Children sat in the cars, and around-and-around they went.
The locomotive was a model of an S-motor electric switcher New York Central used in its Grand Central Terminal in New York City for years.
But it wasn’t the scale of the track. An engine modeled to track scale woulda been much bigger.
Model-trains were moving over layouts galore. Some were very realistic, operating trains of 50 cars or more.
One layout had a modern doublestack container train pulled by three locomotives. It looked like what I see at Allegheny Crossing.
It derailed at a switch; cars akimbo, and containers all over the ground. Nothing bent or crumpled of course.
The operator had to stop everything and reassemble. That means re-railing everything, re-coupling, and putting together the doublestacks.
I saw another derailment; a long mixed freight uncoupling at the derailment.
Again a big hand descended from the sky.
Derail in the real world and ya need cranes and heavy equipment. There’s no big hand.
I’ve included a photograph of an N-gauge layout. It’s extremely well done — for a model railroad layout.
(My friend said this was the first time we agreed on anything.)


The N-gauge layout. (iPhone photo [gasp] by BobbaLew.)

Way more trackage than the real world, more tracks than highways or streets.
Tightly cramped buildings, all well modeled.
Plus railroad curvature and grades beyond what a real railroad could do.
The flanges on model-train wheels might be three or four scale feet. Real railroad flanges are maybe two or three inches.
The layout has a freight visible at bottom-left negotiating curvature ya might find in old waterfront trackage serving piers.
Throw a real train into such a curve at 50 mph and it derails.
The din was incredible, so loud I couldn’t hear my cellphone ring.
My friend had arthritis in a knee, so couldn’t hobble around much.
I was pretty much on-my-own at first, needing a bathroom.
Attempts at contacting my friend via cellphone failed, because he couldn’t hear it ring.
I tried twice, getting voicemail. “Will you please turn on yer phone!”
After maybe an hour-and-a-half we left.
I met my mower-man at the show. He also sells model-trains.
On the way back to my friend’s place we paralleled New York Central’s famous Water-Level Route, now CSX.
“Water-Level” because it more-or-less paralleled the Erie Canal — no mountains to cross.
“Send us a train,” I thought.
Nothing like the real thing.
Model-trains are fun, but to me the real thing is more fun.
A mind-bending sensory rush as one passes.

• RE: “iPhone photo (gasp)”...... —My siblings all say anything Apple is of-the-Devil, although a few have iPhones. I use an Apple computer, and Apple computers are of-the-Devil. I should be using a Windoze PC, but I am “rebellious,” so they say.
• “Allegheny Crossing” is where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain just west of Altoona, PA. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. I’ve been there hundreds of times. The railroad is one of two that serve the east-coast megalopolis — extremely busy. Wait a few minutes and ya see a train. And it’s a mountain railroad, assaulting the heavens climbing.