The Drink Tank 283 (2011).pdf

James Bacon Editors Chris Garcia garcia@computerhistory.org

The Drink Tank Issue 283 - May 2011

James Bacon & Chris Garcia - Editors

Page 1 - Table of Contents

Photo by Howeird

Page 10 - Railway Modelling by 1/2 Cruttenden

Art by Roy D. Pounds II

“Sorry, no can do. I’m not a modeller.”

Page 2 - Editorial by Christopher J Garcia

Art by Roy D. Pounds II

“Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones ever

made.”

Page 12 - The Oddness of Ireland - Model Trains

by James Bacon

“The Slainte Express is especially sickening.”

Page 3 - The Day At The Depot by James Bacon

Photos by James Bacon

“It is an interesting subject, crashing two of my

personal favourites together...”

Page 14 - The MIT Tech Model Rail Road Club

by Christopher J Garcia

“You don’t have to be an engineer to be into model

trains, but the paycheck helps!”

Page 6 - Railway Connections

by Alastair Reynolds

Photos by Alastair Reynolds

“ My ﬁrst love is the Great Western Railway.”

Page 19 - All Aboard by Fred Lerner

Art by Roy D. Pounds

“Another bucolic land needing improved transportation is

Islandia.”

Page 8 - Confusing the Real and The Simulated

for Fun and Proﬁt

by Moshe Feder

“..they can be mistaken for the real things...”

Comments? garcia @ computerhistory.org

I had a train set when I was a kid. 1860 Briar-

wood Dr.’s garage was famous in the neighborhood for

the train set. It was a piece of plywood on top of two

saw-horses. Dad made it himself. I should have known

that something was up when four year old Chris wasn’t

allowed in the garage for a month. The garage was my

favorite place other than the toybox where I’d throw

out all my toys and climb in with all my blankets. The ga-

rage was transformed, a car never again parking inside.

The reason it was famous? It was almost all pa-

per.

Dad, ever a DIY man, made the buildings from

heavy, folded paper. He’d take them from work and

come home and do his version of origami. It was the

kind of origami done with scissors and tape. He’d draw

out buildings and then cut them up, fold them into

shape, install them This allowed him to make hundreds

of different buildings. Sometimes, he’d improvise, like

taking the Quaker Oats tube and turning it into a grain

silo, or the time he turned a mini cereal box into a sort

of Arc de Triumph for the layout. In the three years that

I was interested in it, there were hundreds of different

buildings, that we’d cycle in and out. Dad even made a

three story ﬁrehouse that was a near-exact duplicate

of the one that he worked at!

Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones

ever made.

I swear they were made from former plastic

milkjugs. They were cheap, something like 3 dollars a

car, and they were all-plastic. You could only run the

engine for a few minutes before you had to stop and

let it cool or little whisps of acrid black smoke would

come off of it. It was a piece of crap, but it was mine.

Well, it was actually Dad’s, but I got to play with

it.

I lost interest when I got into baseball and roll-

er skates and books and my Fisher-Price tape recorder.

I would go in and play with the set-up once in a while,

but it never held the sway again. We moved from 1860

Briarwood in 1987, a full 9 years after Dad made it, and

we never took it down. It wasn’t until we moved to a

smaller apartment that the set-up was tossed, the cars

and engine along with it, the paper buildings crumbled

up and binned.

This issue is about model trains, one of those

things that a lot of us have in common. We loved them

once, some of us forever, and we all have stories about

them.

And these are ours...

The Day At The Depot

by James Bacon

It’s a wet and dreary Sunday morning, I feel a

mild fug upon myself as I awaken, I throw down two

paracetamol and following a shower and Coffee I am

alive.

is their overstock storage space and its pretty awe-

some, and brilliant, that well, people like me, twice a

year get to look into the store room, and see all the

cool things.

Strangely I

question whether I

am mad or just mad.

I am up a little ear-

lier than expected,

I have had a good

eight hours sleep, but

I fell into bed at 2am

following a long but

not arduous shift. In-

stead of lounging or

relaxing I am prompt

about my move-

ments. I start work

today at 4pm. 16 oh

something to be ex-

act, but shift working

As I walked

up the sloped road

to the Depot, an old

Routemaster bus,

which was running

a shuttle drive past,

and made for the de-

pot itself. The smell of

smoke was in the air,

and the Acton Min-

iature railway had a

4-4-0 London Under-

ground Metropoli-

tan Steam train, on

a 71⁄4” gauge track,

drawing two carriag-

es with children atop

is odd like this, so although I don’t have an evening like

a nine to ﬁver this morning I have a few hours, and my

intent is clear.

It is a very short drive from Uxbridge where

I am currently staying to Acton. Acton is one of those

west London boroughs that has a lot of railway stations

- tube stations - and a pretty serous depot I supposed

the land was available.

East Acton north Acton and West Acton are all

on the central line - East acton is a eight minute walk to

my work at old oak common, Acton central and Acton

south are on the London overground. Acton Town is

on the Piccadilly and district line, while Acton Mainline

is on the Great Western Mainline and I pass through it

when I drive my train.

I drove down to Acton Town, where there are

a number of major train depots, one of which is a de-

pot especially for the London Transport Museum. This

it, pufﬁng away from a covered space, which was the

station in this narrow gauge world. It is a beautiful en-

gine, visiting the AMR which has a permanent line laid

out in the grounds of the Museum.

The metropolitan railway are one of the most

interesting metro railways, having a freight operation

at one stage as well as going some distance out of the

city.

This year, I was focussed on the model rail-

ways which use London Underground as their focus.

Although there was once a London Underground train

set from Ever Ready, it seems to be a railway that has

not had much popularity, as some companies, in the

modelling world. Perhaps its the unusual setting or the

difﬁcult in modelling it, but this means that there are a

more select bunch who go out and model these trains,

and also the art of necessity bringing on invention is

quite fervent.

ERTL make diescast model Underground trains

as static displays, and these form the basis of many a

model, as they are relatively easy to modify to run on

regular HO track.

It also has created what could be considered a

Cottage Industry, Metro Models which have the won-

der ‘Abbey Rd’ model, which brilliantly demonstrates

the different type of stock on the Underground as well

as featuring part of the station – sub-surface- are actu-

ally a manufacturer of model trains. I got chatting with

one of the men, he explained that they design and

manufacture ready to run ‘00’ scale etched brass mod-

els of tube trains as well as stocking the EFE tube which

can be purchased as static displays or with motors ﬁt-

ted.

The owner John Polley faced many difﬁculties

building and running his ﬁrst model, and from this his

company was born and now today they have a factory

workshop operation in Sri Lanka.

The variety of trains that this model had, the

modern and old Tube and Sub-surface stock, the per-

manent way machines, the Isle of Wight liveried stock,

it’s wonderful, and the greatest advertisement for not

only having a model, which is fairly unique, but also for

the will power of people who enjoy the hobby.

On then to London Rd., another timeless set-

ting to allow a number of workings to pass through.

This model is some 30 years old, but like many things

has been renewed, with points and signalling being up-

graded. I especially like the North London line workings.

Again a whole ﬂeet of different trains are on hand.

I walk around the museum, which I love, mostly

for its rawness and the fact that it’s a working museum,

where not only can you get close to things but get in

and look around. And then I see that as if in some sort

of crazy synchronicity, the greatest London Transport

‘what if’ is sitting there with a south Croydon destina-

tion blind on it. The rear engine Routemaster. It may

look like similar buses of the rear engine period, but

this one is fairly special, it was the failed attempt at

common sense. Routemasters, out lived many hundreds

of the initial rear engine successors, and the work load

and time associated with the rear engine buses took

the bus industry London Transport by surprise. Cost-

ing a whole lot more than expected. Here Robert Cog-

ger explains;

‘The only thing I would say is that it wasn’t re-

ally ‘the industry’ that was surprised. It was just London

Transport, where the standard rear engined models did

not easily ﬁt with its overhaul/refurbishment practise

of literally pulling buses apart and putting them back

together again. The rest of the industry got on with

them just ﬁne. Which is why they were very keen to

buy them all up when London Transport started sell-

ing the earlier models off at a ridiculously early age. It

was basically the inﬂexibility of London Transport to

adapt quickly that was the problem, and why, ultimately,

Routemasters lasted so long.’

‘The way Routemasters (and RTs etc.) were

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