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| Sunday, 29 September 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Miniature and model trains : A mighty fascination by Jayanthi Liyanage If you are a rail-hobbyist nourishing a craze for toy wagons and toy tracks, Trains 2002 could have opened in you a floodgate of mind flashes as to how your hobby horse could take flight on a much more elevated tangent.
For the Model Railroaders of Model Railroad Club (MRC) who had on show their action layouts of model and miniature railways at S. De S. Jayasinghe Hall of Dehiwela during September 20-22, hobbying did involve a lot more spade work than the mere shunting of wind-up and battery-operated trains. Being a Model Railroader also means maintaining the right scale in modelling, or 'down-sizing', every single item featured on your layout, may it be steam locomotives, suburban push-pull types, diesel hydraulics, diesel railcars, shunters, carriages, cars and even people and buildings. Declared open by Priyal de Silva, General Manager, Sri Lanka Railways, the exhibition showcased not toys, but actual miniatures of American, European and Sri Lankan locomotives, rail wagons and tracks, modelled to a chosen scale and running in scenery reproduced in near-minute detail to match a specific period in history. There were single-train layouts, with the lusty locomotive puffing and huffing up a hilly terrain strewn with human settlements, and disappearing through a clump of trees into the narrow gorge of a tunnel. There were also layouts with two or more trains alternately plying on Broad Gauge or Dual Gauge through tea land, industrial settlements or other authentic landscape detailing. One Sri Lankan layout was a nostalgic hark back to the 1970's era with familiar oil tanks coupled to the passenger stocks.
The models were mostly Standard Gauge trains (4'8 1/2" or 1435 mm) miniaturised to HO or N scales, which are followed by 90% of the world over Model Railroading activity. Remember, the locos and rolling stock running on a track should match the track in the Gauge of their wheel spacing, otherwise you have chaos! Waste and scrap material was what went into the making of some of the carriages, Vinodh Wickremeratne, Hony. Secretary, MRC, told us. For a brief spell, Alliance Precision Crafts (Pvt) Ltd., a Sri Lankan-German collaboration, had locally manufactured model trains at Polgasowita till early nineties. Now, much of the local Model Railroader material of Peco tracks, Mehano and Lima Locomotives and rolling stock are imported. The collective effort of St. Thomas' College branch of MRC was the origin of another exhibit. "Many a time in the Club's 20 year life span, parents have told us that model railroading had kept their youngsters apart from drugs and other menaces," says Wickremeratne. "The industrious frame set of mind a youngster forms through painstakingly searching for historical and geographical details in serious modelling, is certainly a safe-guard against lapses into such unhealthy pursuits." "Though this is a costly hobby, we can assist those interested on how to collect stock and become a Model Railroader within a less-affluent background," he adds. The 1983-begun MRC has a Junior Membership category for 'teens and pre-teens' and Trains 2002 marked the Club's fifth public exhibition. |
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