Playing with Trains: A Passion Beyond Scale
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.75 (953 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0812971264 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-03-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"If you are into toy trains you are certain to find this fun." according to Guy Hayden. A very enjoyable and fast read of an interesting subject. If you are into toy trains you are certain to find this fun.. "Model Trains" according to oldparkman. I thought this was a treat. Brought back the enthusiasms of the 60s, when sitting up late with a magnifying visor, waxed paper and pins, x-acto and steel rule was satsifying -- long before cable, i-pod, dvd, gameboy, and all that.. Whay a Read Whether you're into model railroading or not, this wonderfully writtenpeek into that world is worth twice what you'll pay for it.Call it a no-brainer, buy it and enjoy.
On the other hand, Tony Koester, a New Jersey modeler, believes his “mission” is to replicate, with fanatical precision and authenticity, the way a real railroad operates. He expects to find men “engaged in a genial hobby, happy to spend a few hours a week escaping the pressures of contemporary life.” Instead he uncovers a world of extremes–extreme commitment, extreme passion, and extreme differences of approach. Why do grown men play with trains? Is it a primal attachment to childhood, nostalgia for the lost age of rail travel, or the stuff of flat-out obsession? In this delightful and unprecedented book, Grand Prix legend Sam Posey tracks those who share his “passion beyond scale” and discovers a wonderfully strange and vital culture.Posey’s first layout, wired by his mother in the years just after the Second World War, was, as he writes in his Introduction, “a miniature universe which I could operate on my own. Going to extremes himself, Posey actually “test drives” a real steam engine in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to understand the great machines that inspired the model
The author's concise descriptions of his various models are enthralling and often funny, such as the model of his friend Paul Newman's impeccably clean Newman's Own food company headquarters; Posey playfully makes it into a harmful sewage polluter with lazy, card-playing workers, one of whom "looked suspiciously like Newman himself." The book's second half is equally absorbing, as Posey meets with, profiles and discusses model railroading with some of the nation's top modelers. Those who owned electric trains as kids will delight in Posey's retelling of his early love of Lionel trains, as well as his recounting of such details as the fact that Pope Pius XII, "in full ecclesiastical garb, posed with Lionel equipment in t