Greenberg

611. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“Better than last time,” we observed.
“Although it could use more N-gauge,” my friend said. “There was some, but it could use more.”
“My friend” is Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”) a bus-driver retired from Regional Transit Service (RTS), in Rochester NY.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for RTS, 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.
Gary and I are both interested in trains: Gary model trains, me the real thing.
Together we occasionally attend model-train shows. “Greenberg” was a recent show outside Rochester. It’s put on by Greenberg’s Great Train & Toy Shows.
On our way out we talked with a Greenberg organizer.
“Needs more N-gauge,” Gary said.
“Used to be mainly old Lionel, but we’re getting more HO and N.”
HO is 16.5 mm (.64961 inches) between the rails, N is 9 mm (.354 inches) between the rails.
The model-trains are usually smaller than track-gauge scale, but both look pretty good.
Model-trains have gotten much better looking than when I was a child, but still not as interesting as the real thing.
I always say my favorite track-gauge is four-feet 8&1/2 inches, which of course is real track-gauge.
Older Lionel O-gauge is 32 mm (1.25 inches) apart; Gary’s newest layout is N gauge — mainly because N doesn’t need as much space as larger gauges, particularly O, which is quite large.
O-gauge rail equipment is now scaled 1:48 to 1:43.5, much more realistic than it used to be. Years ago it was to a much smaller scale; but 1:43.5 is large equipment.
Scale a locomotive up to track-scale and you have a monster. Do it N-scale, and your model-railroad isn’t overtaking the basement.
“But even then,” I observe; “a model-railroad can’t be very realistic. Flanges on model-railroad wheels hafta be scale three feet or more.
Plus the rail has to be gigantic; high enough to keep flanges off the ties.
That’s rail over three scale feet high. High-performance rail on a real railroad might crank near 1.75 feet (138 pounds per yard), but I’ve never seen three-foot rail.
Rail in sidings, 90-110 pounds per yard, might be nearly a foot high. Yet that model railroad still has three-foot rail in sidings.
I tell Gary “I always prefer THE REAL THING.
“Yeah, but I can’t get the real thing in my basement,” he says.
There are other problems:
—1) First is curvature. Real railroading would need so much space to properly model Horseshoe Curve, ya’d need an airport-hanger.
Curves have to be tight enough to loop within a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood.
Curves that tight couldn’t be operated on a real railroad. Throw Norfolk & Western #611 (the 4-8-4 illustrated above) into a curve as tight as what’s pictured, and 611 would fly off the track.
You might be able to negotiate curvature that tight with an 0-4-0 switcher at 5-10 mph, but not a 60 mph express.
—2) Second is train-speed.
My neighbor and I were assembling an HO layout in his basement when we were teenagers.
We measured one afternoon. Our rubber-band drive Athearn Budd RDC (rail-diesel-car) got up to 250 scale mph. It stopped from that speed in about 150 scale feet.
Try that in reality, and you toss all your passengers out of their seats. (I know; I drove transit bus.)
—3) Third is train-length.
The train included at right had 40-50 cars: amazing! It was just two New-York-Central Baldwin Shark A-units pulling the entire train.
40-50 cars for a single model-train is astounding. We had a hill on our layout that a single Athearn F-unit might stall if it had more than five cars. (At which point a big hand descended from the sky and helped the train up the hill.)
Real railroading might pull 100 or more cars with two or three diesels.
So what it comes to is -a) the joy of operating a model railroad, versus -b) sensory overload of the real thing.
Plus the pleasure of exquisite modeling. Last summer we photographed  a fabulous N-scale layout at a model-train show in Syracuse. It was great to look at, but much more crowded than reality.
Track everywhere, most with curves so tight a real train couldn’t operate ‘em.
There also were roads, but roads were secondary to track. Roads might disappear off the layout, or dead-end at a factory. Buildings were cheek-to-jowl.
There also were tunnels, usually just for having tunnels. Trains would tunnel into a “mountain” only as high as the tunnel — what would have been daylighted long ago.
Behind everything was a diorama of filthy coal-fired smokestacks belching into bright azure sky.
Altoona, PA, where my brother and I photograph the real thing, is crowded trackside, but nothing like the model.
But “I can’t get the real thing in my basement.”
Nevertheless I enjoy going to model-train shows with Gary. We have a good time exchanging snide remarks and verbal potshots. Also pretending we’re The Stooges. (“Here, see this?” POINK! “Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!”)