I mentioned in the "Old MRR Items Ads" thread that my progress looking for N Scale material in magazines is often distracted by reading articles. Here's an example that includes information that is still relevant I would think... Minton Cronkhite was a pioneer in model railroading, having been involving in building scale locomotives since the early 1920s. He's not as well known as other pioneers but he should be: among other things, he was the force behind several railroads sponsored by the prototype Santa Fe Railroad including the long-running one at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Cronkhite modeled in "Q Scale," a more to scale version of O Scale with a more correct track gauge of 1 3/16 inches to align better with the 1:48 proportion of models. As part of a retrospective of his work in the June 1966 Model Railroader, Cronkhite recalled questions asked and remarks made by visitors to museum railroads. How many of these have you heard? "How much did it cost?" "Where is the rest room?" "How fast can they go?" "Can you run them all at once?" "Can you have wrecks?" "What a lovely train set!" My two additions, variations on the theme: "Isn't this cute?" (Uttered more than once by Horribly Oversized Modelers about my N Scale Layout) "Do you wreck your trains like on The Addams Family?" (The answer, by the way, was "not intentionally.") I'm sure you have your own "favorites"...
Heard all of those plus: Did you make all that? How long did it take you to do that? Or the fames wife one.... Oh, that's nice dear....
We eliminate some of the questions with signs we have posted around the layout. We cover size, distance and speed ( X number of seconds to cover a Module = X mph). We also have a display that has a boxcar from G to Z so visitors can see the difference in scales. Because we almost always set up for a weekend (NTRAK), we get a LOT of "how long does it to set up/tear down?" and "how long did it take to build?". Also not covered yet is "what makes them go?". We live in a huge state (Montana) and have 3 train stores ( none in the central part where we are) so we get a lot of "where can I buy trains?", and the already mentioned "how much does a train set cost?".
Quick Detour... Welcome aboard to C.M. van der Linden. Nice to have you here. And a comment on your signature: I once worked for a company which had a high-ranking executive pass out "Roughly Right" stamps for use when we ran into managers who couldn't make a decision. I not only still have the stamp (the ink has probably dried up by now as it dates to the Previous Century) but I still use the phrase and include it on slides in the "Stencil" font just as it would have looked stamped. We now return you to other questions that modelers receive when showing their layouts to the public, already in progress...
I once got this: "Aren't you a little old to still be playing with toys like this?" Since then, I often wear this when exhibiting one of my layouts or doing clinics at train cons/shows :
I've only hear it once, a long time ago when we displayed our Bend Track modules at a local mall. A guy and wife came up to the setup and we noticed that he was just following one of our trains as it was running with incredible interest. Soon enough he looked up in utter amazement and told one of our guys "I just can't believe how clean that exhaust is coming from that locomotive?!!! You must have got that baby tuned up really good" Several of us nervously glanced at each other quickly and then one replied "Those don't run on Diesel engines, they run on small electric motors......." Before he could finish explaining the guy grabbed to lead loco off the rails and looked at it real closely, then said in amazement......... and I kid you not! "Electric?! But I don't see any wires coming from it???????" At that point several of us turned and walked off so he didn't hear or see us laughing like hell.
I've only ever invited a relatively small number of people to see my home layout over a couple decades and, when I did, they always ask, "how fast will it go?" and they will also point to another train staged somewhere and ask, "can you make that one go too?" With these relatively few visitors over the course of decades, I've had more than one (adults, mind you) do the full fist grab of a custom detailed and painted loco for a closer look. Just bear pawed it right off the track, once while it was running! Another visitor just started throwing turnouts with a train approaching, because he "wanted to see what would happen." Now, when people ask to see the layout, I typically say "some other time, perhaps".
The most asked questions at train shows are: "What scale is that?" and "How can that little engine pull all of those cars?" But the one question I got that just about floored me was from a guy who wanted to know if all of the engines in my ABA set of LifeLike E7's were powered. I told him that the two A units were powered but the B unit was a dummy. He then wanted to know if they were DCC. I told him the two A units were. He then said, "How about the B unit?"
I would not have been able to resist stating that it took years of development, trial and error to get it right! And that it should be hitting the market soon!
The two A units have LifeLike E7 shells but the innards are actually Kato E8's. They are non-sound DCC. I've been contemplating adding a sound only decoder to the dummy B unit with speakers at each end. Then the B unit would be DCC too.
If you go back and watch the show again they only “wrecked” the train once. It’s just the same scene repeated and they sometimes show different camera angles in a different order to make it look “different”. On a different note, I brought my 3x6 layout to the last show my club had and since I’m trying to sell it my most common question was “how much?” I got a couple “can the train go the other direction?” And is it DC or DCC. So my answers were $500 but reasonable offers will be accepted. Yes the train will work just fine in either direction (and I show them that it does by reversing the throttle) and the last question is both depending on which you plug into the side.
I just got back from a show this weekend and there was a couple just discovering trains for the first time. They were in their early 20’s and he asked how many hours will they run on a single charge? It took me a second to comprehend that he thought there were batteries in the locomotive. I said they get their power from the rails, there are not batteries inside. He said the guy over there (pointing over his shoulder) said his trains run for about 6 hours on a single charge. He was talking about the G scale display that was right next to us. I chuckled (inside) and said those trains have a lot more room inside than mine do, I’m N scale. He then said this is too complicated for me and walked off.
Yes that's true. Somewhere online there is a video illustrating how this was done on The Addams Family (well, the TV series, at least). One of my friends watched it at a very slow speed. It's my understanding that the tracks on which the trains "collided" were not actually connected-- even Lionel Trains couldn't oppose each other on the same length of track. Just think, with DCC it's now entirely possible to have head-on collisions... Truly an important advance in technology...
One I hear a lot at the train club is, "Why did you choose [insert scale here] scale over all the other scales in the room?" Which at least opens up interesting discussions on the pros/cons of different scales and why we choose what we do. On the flip side though is, "Why don't YOUR trains make smoke like the Lionel ones?" If any locomotives on the N layout are smoking someone is going to have to buy a new decoder
