Nutgraf

Spouse and I had the good fortune to visit San Diego several weeks ago for some much-needed vacation. Our vacation policy is “Walk Your Legs Off,” and we spent one of our Extreme Walking days at Balboa Park, this incredible urban fauna preserve with 15 museums, a massive organ of much repute (get your mind out of the gutter), trails, clubhouses for every imaginable hobby and free parking.

One of our stops was at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. Spouse was initially reluctant to go in, but I had an uncle who was an avid collector and have run into a couple of other model railroad enthusiasts and knew that this isn’t playing with trains – it’s an exercise in research, detail, and cheerful obsession with a place or a time. Liking trains doesn’t hurt either.

The museum is incredible – the models are enormous, detailed, carefully maintained and lovingly manned by volunteers who seem to never tire of running the trains. Some of the dioramas have little jokes in them, encouraging you to move slowly and look closely.

Presumptuously enough, I wrote to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum’s Executive Director, John Rotsart, who was kind enough to answer a few questions. Here is Part 1 of the interview:

Model railroading is not a casual hobby, I know. What are the phases of creating a new model?

In general creating a new model railroad consists of the following steps:

1. .Assuming you are working in one scale and this is a scale model railroad, and not a toy train, you can research the prototype.

Photos of the actual cars or locomotives or the route of the actual railroad that you are modeling increases your knowledge and joy as a successful model builder. Research is very helpful providing details you would want to add. Railway historical societies publish monthly or quarterly newsletters and also describe particular railroads and their practices. Model railroad magazines that are fully indexed (Check our SDMRM Library that is open four or five days a week), the Official Guide published annually and available at our library are a treasure trove of information about particular cars.

2. Purchase hobby tools and invest in a scale rule.

Assemble the kit, or if purchased preassembled make sure the details you researched in # 1 are completed to your satisfaction.

3. Paint and weather the car or loco.

Having a hobby airbrush is almost required to get a decent finish. Weathering with paint or chalk can be fun.  Starting in the 1960s taggers often graffitied the cars, but earlier cars from the fifties or before weren’t tagged by vandals. Railroad cars have a life cycle of at least 25 years sometimes double that. New paint is seldom applied, so very often you have the accumulated life of the freight car layered in dust, mud, oil, rust and grime.

4. Mechanical inspection and testing.

The term “gauge” refers to the distance between the rails; the “scale” refers to of the ratio between the model and actual prototype. A model railroad track and wheel gauge that is the industry standard is provided by the NMRA (National Model Railroad Association. You may join and then purchase a NMRA track gauge for $5). This small metal gauge, which I call the condensed version of the model railroaders’ bible, has so many uses. You may check the track gauge, switch gauge clearances, wheel gauge and flange depth, overall height and width clearances and couplers. All the mechanical things you need to check to make sure your model will conform to international standards, track properly and not derail.

5.Track planning

Track planning is very popular with many How-to books and at least one or two articles on this subject in every issue of a magazine. Features of the prototype railroad you are modeling, including special scenic features that will draw a modeler towards incorporating scenes, backdrops, buildings or other structures such as bridges or tunnels into his/her choice for a model railroad layout.  The limited space of reality such as actual dimensions of a room or garage doesn’t have to be limiting.  Compression, abridging reality to fit your imagination, is a specialty of model railroading.

6. Operation

There are many varieties from looking at the trains go round and round to timetable operation, and even compressing time (using a fast clock) so each operating hour is, say, an actual 20 minutes. Switching cars and delivering imaginary goods is one way a modeler may choose to order cars in a train. It has become a very popular operating scenario to stage a road switcher style op session.

Tune in next time, when we learn about the homeland security implications of all of those aerial photographs!

• Read Part II of the interview!!
  

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