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Back to the Choo-ture: the Enduring Nostalgia of Model Trains · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give a big shout out to
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  Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Would you guys call me the conductor.
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  Speaker 1: I've thought about it, but I don't want you to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: get power man.
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  Speaker 2: Like I haven't already gotten there.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: No, I think you're okay. You're on the edge. You're
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: just on the edge of your power. Lukewarm power, curious power,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: curious your nol. I bet this is Ridiculous History.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We're we're on the road for a couple of different
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: adventures right now, so you may you may hear us
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: doing some guest spots on some friends shows. We are
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: coming to you two thirds of the way from New York.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yes, I see, I see. I got the calculation there.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: And yeah, you also might hear the thrum of a
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  Speaker 3: heating unit that I can't figure out how to turn off.
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  Speaker 3: But I'm doing my best. I've got the mic pointed
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  Speaker 3: away from it. And Maxwell, I'm calling you that for
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  Speaker 3: this episode for reasons. By the way, usually it's pretty
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  Speaker 3: good at magicking that stuff away.
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  Speaker 2: And actual James. Maybe maybe yes, see, I don't.
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  Speaker 1: Know old m J. Also know, if you're comfortable with
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  Speaker 1: us doing this on air, I can tell you what
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  Speaker 1: the fan is. Background, folks, we're in the same hotel,
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  Speaker 1: recording remotely.
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  Speaker 3: I've seen each other yet in Atlanta.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So I was trying to figure this out while
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  Speaker 1: I was doing some research this morning, because I flew
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: into an ungodly hour. If you I kid you not,
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  Speaker 1: I bet I know what this is. You know, if
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  Speaker 1: you go to your door and then you see the
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  Speaker 1: light switch by the front door, you're going to see
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  Speaker 1: a little plaque that says, uh like sound cancelation or other.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, it's like a little knob. Yeah, let me go,
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  Speaker 3: let go, uh caress the knob. Wait, not what you get?
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  Speaker 3: You get it?
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  Speaker 1: You get it, get it? And so uh while we're
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  Speaker 1: doing that, I hope that works a bit of background, folks,
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  Speaker 1: today's episode is all about model trains. Hints our banter
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  Speaker 1: at the beginning.
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  Speaker 3: What black magic is this?
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  Speaker 2: Oh?
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  Speaker 3: Did it works? It works? And it's weird because this hotel.
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  Speaker 3: I guess the building is old because it's one of
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  Speaker 3: those places where it has no convenient outlets and the
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  Speaker 3: outlets that it does have don't like to grip a
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  Speaker 3: modern plug very well. They just kind of slide right out.
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  Speaker 3: And yet it has this new fangled noise masking system
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  Speaker 3: for the heating.
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  Speaker 1: It's because it's an open air like atrium inside and
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  Speaker 1: they have that live band.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, that's what I see what you're saying. So,
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  Speaker 3: so the noise I was hearing was the feature, not
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  Speaker 3: the bug.
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  Speaker 2: Right, not yet.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's white noise. It's just being generated. It wasn't
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  Speaker 3: being generated. But wow, we're all learning so much about
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  Speaker 3: this hotel. I'm not going to dock us and say
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  Speaker 3: which one it is. But I like it here. We
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  Speaker 3: like it here, and we haven't been in a while,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm excited to be back in New York. And
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  Speaker 3: I know we'll see each other in person very soon
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  Speaker 3: been but in the meantime, we can just pretend like
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  Speaker 3: it's business as usual, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And that big aspiration and putting on my
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  Speaker 1: vision board is I hope next time we're on the
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  Speaker 1: road we can bring super producer maxwells with us.
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  Speaker 3: For a second, I thought you were saying and right
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  Speaker 3: now I'm putting on my vision pro uh goggles. So
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  Speaker 3: that I can experience this from the moon.
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  Speaker 1: Right there, we go, and we will podcast on the
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  Speaker 1: moon one day.
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  Speaker 3: We'll be the first. We'll be the first mark our words.
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  Speaker 3: We said it here folks speaking of aspiration provision boards.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that might sound like a crazy ambition. Why
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  Speaker 1: would you guys do that kind of thing? But you
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  Speaker 1: know what, once upon a time people said the same
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  Speaker 1: thing about toys like model trains.
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  Speaker 3: Bro Once upon a time before that, people said the
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  Speaker 3: same thing about trains. That's a very good point.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, if God had wanted us to use railroads, we
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  Speaker 1: would have tracks and wheels instead of feet whatever.
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  Speaker 3: I thought.
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  Speaker 1: So this is something that has been on our minds
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  Speaker 1: for a while. I think, you know, like a lot
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  Speaker 1: of kids I grew up with, I would say a dabbling,
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  Speaker 1: a dabblement in the world of model trains, because these
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  Speaker 1: things can get super ornate and super expensive pretty quickly.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, if you have ever had the chance
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  Speaker 1: to go over to a friend's house, or maybe a
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  Speaker 1: museum or an exhibit, you see someone who's gone all in,
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  Speaker 1: like they have sacrificed their basement to have a little
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  Speaker 1: town with a train.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no I haven't, But if there is ever one
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  Speaker 3: that I want to experience. It belongs to the seminal
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  Speaker 3: nineteen seventies and on into our sixties even and on
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  Speaker 3: into the present. Singer songwriter, artist extraordinary Neil Young, who
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  Speaker 3: has apparently a one thousand foot square foot model train
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  Speaker 3: situation on his ranch in northern California, and he's so
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  Speaker 3: into classic trains, including a Lionel number seven fifty two
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  Speaker 3: w Union specific, not specific, but Pacific Streamliner from the thirties,
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  Speaker 3: as well as a wireless control system. All of this
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  Speaker 3: like early model train stuff we're going to get into.
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  Speaker 3: That'd be the one I want to hang out with.
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  Speaker 3: Neil His in his model train dungeon whatever it is,
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  Speaker 3: sounds more like a barn situation.
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  Speaker 1: One thousand square feet. That's quite humbling because that's larger
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  Speaker 1: than some of like one of my old apartments. But
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  Speaker 1: I think this These things are really fascinating because they
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  Speaker 1: also tell us a bit about the time in which
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  Speaker 1: they were created. They're a way to view society. And
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  Speaker 1: we also know we're just gonna go ahead and say this.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to lean on Max at a couple points
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  Speaker 1: in our conversation today because Max is a mad man
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  Speaker 1: for model trains.
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  Speaker 3: Mad Man Max the Conductor, Mad Max the mad Conductor.
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  Speaker 3: Really like that. I like that.
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  Speaker 1: And so these early trains, the first ones like they
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  Speaker 1: date back to I guess like model railroading. The actual
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  Speaker 1: ones that work and aren't just carved things. These date
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  Speaker 1: back to the early nineteenth century tinplate toys were first manufactured,
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  Speaker 1: and they were by clockwork mechanisms, so they were pretty complicated.
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  Speaker 3: Very complicated, very expensive to produce, not really in the
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  Speaker 3: realm of like mass manufactured objects, right.
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  Speaker 1: I would say, you know, in the beginning, probably not
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  Speaker 1: because they hadn't quite become popular right when they started.
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  Speaker 3: It was.
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  Speaker 1: It was by the end of the nineteenth century, the
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  Speaker 1: end of the eighteen hundreds that the first commercial model
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  Speaker 1: trains were made. So I'd say you're correct on that,
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  Speaker 1: And well let's get into it. Let's start with this
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  Speaker 1: great article by Barry Coulter from O Gauge Train Repair,
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  Speaker 1: and you'll if you re listen to this episode, then
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  Speaker 1: the title of that website will make much more.
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  Speaker 3: Sense to you for sure. And by the way, Neil
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  Speaker 3: Young's at least one of his you know, largest model
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  Speaker 3: train setups is an O gauge which is a larger
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  Speaker 3: scale model train. So before we we'll get into some
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  Speaker 3: of these terms. But yeah, according to culture, model trains
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  Speaker 3: is quote from this article have been the Christmas delight
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  Speaker 3: of youngsters for many generations, from the most primitive replicas
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  Speaker 3: of the Iron Horse in the eighteen hundreds the most
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  Speaker 3: sophisticated railroad sets of today. Trains have remained atop the
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  Speaker 3: Christmas lists of both the young and the old.
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  Speaker 1: Because, as we're finding, they're also hacking nostalgia, right, because
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  Speaker 1: kids have this vision often associated with holidays, Birthday, Christmas
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  Speaker 1: in particular for the practitioners of Christmas. So when it
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  Speaker 1: reminds me so much of what happens with legos, because
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  Speaker 1: legos are kind of pricey, and one of the biggest
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  Speaker 1: Lego markets is it children. It's adults who can finally
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  Speaker 1: afford all the cool spaceships their parents wouldn't buy you Bulins.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, exactly. Isn't that funny though, I mean, it's
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  Speaker 3: I'm stating the obvious here, but nostalgia obviously works in cycles, right,
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  Speaker 3: because you can't have nostalgia for something until it's old
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  Speaker 3: and kind of been forgotten and fallen out of fashion,
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  Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, you know, before you
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  Speaker 3: know it, it sort of has this resurgence that can
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  Speaker 3: kind of you know, wax and wane a little bit
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  Speaker 3: on its own. And you know, Lego of course and
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  Speaker 3: Model trains as well as we'll see really capitalize on that,
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  Speaker 3: not only because of the you know, the medium itself,
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  Speaker 3: but all the tie ins. Like you mentioned spaceships, right,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the big, really expensive Lego sets are
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  Speaker 3: tied in with things like Star Wars, and they'll be
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  Speaker 3: the classic Star Wars designs like the Death Star, the
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  Speaker 3: Millennium Falcon or what have you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, and I love all of those.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I had a dark night of the soul
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  Speaker 1: a few months back where I got very close to
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  Speaker 1: buy just a cartoonishly expensive Lego set that I had
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  Speaker 1: no room to put it anywhere, and add no business buying.
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  Speaker 3: Uh. We've been doing the Lego set like floral arrangements,
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  Speaker 3: and we've got so many of them now and have
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  Speaker 3: actually very recently started growing our own actual facts flowers.
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  Speaker 3: So the Lego flowers are sort of starting to be
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  Speaker 3: a little bit in the way, so I've had to
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  Speaker 3: I've had to relegate them to my basement studio situation,
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  Speaker 3: which is fine because I love them and they never died.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got I've got a couple of the Lego
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  Speaker 1: architecture sets. People kept giving those to me for Christmas
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  Speaker 1: because I said, anything but socks to my friends.
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  Speaker 3: They celebrate Christmas also socks. As an adult, I love
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  Speaker 3: a good sock.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm always almost out of socks. It's weird,
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  Speaker 1: but all right, today's story about model trains. We have
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  Speaker 1: to talk about trains, the actual trains people, you know,
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  Speaker 1: normal sized people rioted And this concept is modern in
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  Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, I guess, but it dates back.
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  Speaker 1: Surprise icingly, Long time Culture points out the concept of
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  Speaker 1: steam engine trains and locomotives. Yes, doesn't come around till
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, but the idea of making a train
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  Speaker 1: dates all the way back to you know, ancient Rome.
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  Speaker 3: Oh man, I mean, it's really just a practical way
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  Speaker 3: of moving stuff. You know, if you'll if if one
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  Speaker 3: bucket full of stuff is good, then why not link
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  Speaker 3: ten or twenty buckets full of stuff? And then you
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  Speaker 3: have to do the calculation of how much pull do
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  Speaker 3: I need to get these things moving? In the Roman times,
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  Speaker 3: they actually created these paved sort of precursor railway systems
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  Speaker 3: for these wagons that were drawn by of course animals.
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  Speaker 3: And then later in England we started to see horse
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  Speaker 3: drawn wagons that were built out of the same kind
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  Speaker 3: of idea in order to carry coals from the mines
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  Speaker 3: where they were you know, mined to loading sites onto
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  Speaker 3: boats where they could then be shipped and used for trade,
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  Speaker 3: you know, to all parts of the United Kingdom. So
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  Speaker 3: it is a pretty And then of course in the
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  Speaker 3: early days of trains we start seeing you know, the
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  Speaker 3: iron horse. That's the term that's being used because it's
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  Speaker 3: replacing the actual horse, much like horsepower in cars is
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  Speaker 3: used as the sort of amorphous measurement for you know,
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  Speaker 3: how fast and how much torque you know, a vehicle
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  Speaker 3: can produce.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's kind of a skewmrph almost right, the
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  Speaker 1: concept of horsepower.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, remind us again, I think we talked about it
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  Speaker 3: on our episode with Morocco. But the skew morph is
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  Speaker 3: sort of a familiar thing that's built into a new
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  Speaker 3: thing to make people not scared of the new thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a pretty that's a pretty good definition there.
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  Speaker 1: The roots of model trains go back to when steam
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  Speaker 1: powered locomotives are first introduced. And this is a common
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  Speaker 1: thing because you know, you see it now in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four as we record, a lot of young kids,
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  Speaker 1: like very young children, go through these phases where they're
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: fascinated with machinery, right like construction equipment, et cetera, tru
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  Speaker 1: sump trucks, space shuttles. So when the steam powered locomotive
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  Speaker 1: comes out, it's like on the level of a space
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  Speaker 1: shuttle and it's launching the world into industrialization. It becomes
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  Speaker 1: this symbol of progress of innovation and James Maxwell no
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  Speaker 1: relation to our pale Max Williams. He cites that I
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  Speaker 1: had to get that one in for you.
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  Speaker 3: Max.
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  Speaker 1: He cites that they become this iconic thing. Originally they
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  Speaker 1: weren't made for kids. They were made for engineers and
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  Speaker 1: people working in the railroad industry so that they could
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  Speaker 1: understand how actual full scale trains would work. Absolutely is
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  Speaker 1: what you do in engineering.
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  Speaker 3: You still do it. Have you ever you know, seen
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  Speaker 3: like city planners or urban planners and say that you'll
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  Speaker 3: always see, you know, these kind of little miniaturized versions
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  Speaker 3: of a city or like of a development or whatever uh.
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  Speaker 3: And and with prototyping with cars and that level of engineering,
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  Speaker 3: especially when it comes to design, you'll see these very
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  Speaker 3: elaborately kind of like uh crafted, hand crafted off in
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  Speaker 3: clay models of the ultimate design.
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  Speaker 2: I love it.
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  Speaker 1: Such a sucker for that. I used to hang out
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  Speaker 1: at our the building where old office was. They had
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  Speaker 1: a yes, exact model. And it also reminds, you know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it's one of the best parts of Hereditary is the
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  Speaker 1: building of those models at dioramas, the best parts.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: That movie is such a soul crushing bummer, but it's excellent.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: It's very very good. It's a classic buddy comedy. Yeah right,
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  Speaker 3: not for the faint of heart. Yeah, it's true. And
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  Speaker 3: and and a lot of these techniques, you know, have
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  Speaker 3: been largely replaced by digital modeling now. But you know,
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  Speaker 3: much like the nostalgia boom that goes along with the
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  Speaker 3: you know, resurgence and popularity of model trains and Lego's.
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  Speaker 3: Like we were talking, there's a lot of sort of
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  Speaker 3: classicist sort of ideas behind design where they're like, no,
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  Speaker 3: we don't, we don't do the digital version, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we only do it by hand.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And speaking making things by hand, it should
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  Speaker 1: be no surprise than that model trains, like a lot
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  Speaker 1: of toys, to be honest, come from this sort of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: high faluting I'm always say not quite high falluting, mid flute,
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  Speaker 1: a mid foalute artisanal background. If you want to see
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  Speaker 1: the origin the first trained toys model trains, you're going
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to look into Germany in the eighteen thirties. Now when
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  Speaker 1: they're making these initial trains. And I know some people
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: don't want to be called toy trains. So when they're
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: making these model trains the.
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  Speaker 3: First your dad said, this isn't a toy, you know,
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  Speaker 3: don't touch my.
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  Speaker 1: Stuff, or like Hank and breaking bad is like they're minerals.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, don't call it rocks.
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  Speaker 1: But anyway, so these these German craftsmen, their crafts folk,
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  Speaker 1: they pour molten brass or maybe ten into a into
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  Speaker 1: a mold, the same way that they earlier made ten soldiers,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and then they judge it up with wooden fittings like
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  Speaker 1: you were talking about handcarved stuff. It makes it look
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  Speaker 1: like a miniature version of a train. But these things
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  Speaker 1: are fragile. They don't have any moving parts. You manually
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  Speaker 1: push them along a track.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, not quite as cool. And not quite as indicative
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  Speaker 3: of the like true logistics of locomotion, right, which is
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: ultimately I think what really attracts people to the stuff
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: is like that makes them like go all out and
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: buy the conductor's hat and stand in the middle of
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: their giant ring of train trav model train tracks in
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: their city that they are both you know, engineer mayor
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: and god of exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And this gets us to the more elaborate early model trains.
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  Speaker 1: The crafts folk over in France are already great tinsmiths
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and they become known for making very ornate designs on
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  Speaker 1: their toy trains, tall chimneys just so spoke to wheels,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and these trains are I would say, like if you
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: look at them, you would think the French ones are
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: almost more like art pieces. The German trains had the tracks,
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  Speaker 1: but the French trains didn't. You just pushed them along
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the floor. And unfortunately, it's kind of like when you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: look at the Pyramids today, when you look at those
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  Speaker 1: old original French model trains, you have to realize they
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  Speaker 1: used to look a lot different because they were painted
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  Speaker 1: and paint does not stick to tin very well.
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  Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yeah, those do those classic tens
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  Speaker 3: unless they've been you know, sort of preserved or sort
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  Speaker 3: of re painted, I guess they do tend to lose
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  Speaker 3: that luster and look a little bit decrepit. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point too. Like we see other
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  Speaker 1: European forces making model trains. There was a designer in England,
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  Speaker 1: Sir Henry Wood. Yeah, he's the one who took it
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  Speaker 1: up a notch and he said, how cool would it
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  Speaker 1: be if these trains actually worked like real trains. So
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  Speaker 1: he built the first steam powered toys and they've got
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: some famous names.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. Well, these are more like I guess colloquial nicknames, right,
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  Speaker 3: the dribblers and the piddlers because of this sort of
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: snail trail they kind of leave behind them with the
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: excess moisture that gets produced from the steam. But still
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: super cool. Again, this is like a like a like
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  Speaker 3: a scale model kind of situation, and it's operating largely
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  Speaker 3: in the similar manner to the real thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is endlessly fascinating. They also have, as you
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: point out the research ear Max, they also have some
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  Speaker 1: of the same annoyances for parents that other toys had,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: like stepping on the lego piece you know, now you've
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: slipped on a snail trail of water, yeap, and and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you can't you can't break the toy training because you're
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: probably paid so much for it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: So these are largely in the realm of the let's
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: say it privileged at this point, right, I mean not always.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Again, I think mid Fillutin is good. It was definitely
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a toy that well to do children would have, but
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I think also at this time a lot of families
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: were still making their own toys.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Oh that's a good point, especially, and you know European
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: toys have a rich history of craftsmanship, you know, and
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: wooden toys, and then the idea of like making your
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: own that comes from this similar type of design, you know, ethos, Yeah, agreed.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: And we also want to point out that the craftsmen
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: who were making these toy trains previously they were making
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: other toy trains, but they were also making musical instruments,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: so they had the manufacturing prowess to make the the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: small clockwork mechanisms you needed for these working toy trains,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and their clockwork approach eliminated the design flaw of the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: first steam powered toys, and.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: These definitely would have been Oh yeah, yeah, largely reigated
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: to the to the rich, the riches of the riches.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: The company Newton and Co. Which already sounds like a
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: mega bespoke old timey company. Yeah, this is this is
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the company that was making these much more elaborate brass models. However,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: they still weren't particularly accurate, try as they might, nor
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: were they you know, scaled correctly. And again, you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: maybe we haven't gone through this exactly, but I think
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: people can probably put it together. Scaling really refers to
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: just like how you know, like not one to one,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: but like you know, if you have like a part
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: that is a certain size compared to the large thing,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: then that smaller version is going to have that same
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: part be in proportion to a smaller thing.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Just like with any other kind of hobbyist model,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: whether that's a car or whether that's a you know,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: an airplane or something, the scale is a representation of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the proportion of the accuracy of the proportions. And I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: think it's like you said, one to one, so one
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to one scale is life size.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: It's the real thing, right, And we're going to get
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: into the various different types of scale in a little
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: bit yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you said with the European craftsman with
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the clockwork trains, these are for the well to do families.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: They don't really catch on in the United States though,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: at this point, and that's because it's seen as like
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: kind of a fancy pants European thing until Uncle Sam's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: folks start making their own trains.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Leave it to the Americans to take something fancy and
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: bespoken European and turn it into trash. I'm kidding. They're cool,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: they're more accessible. It's a big deal that they do this,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: but it is sort of the reputation I think of
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: American design compared to say European design and manufacturing to
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: be a little less concerned with the details and a
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: little more concerned with the quantity perhaps sober quality. Yeah,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: economy of scale.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: So it's the mid eighteen hundreds. This is where we
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: start to see the US market of toy trains come
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: into the four Matthias Baldwin, founder of the Baltimore Locomotive Works,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: makes a trade model in the eighteen thirties, and then
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: if you get to like the late eighteen thirties to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: eighteen forty, then you'll see several other toy makers start
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: making their own toy trains, and for one reason or another,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Americans prefer buying these to the European what's probably affordability
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: is a huge part of it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I am being grossly general in my description
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: of American manufacturer. America obviously makes some really great products,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and there are incredible crafts folk here in the United
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: States and have been for a generations. So please do
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: not take my tongue in cheek statement there as a
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: total condemnation of American toy makers and or manufactured while
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: good to come for us. Yeah, please don't mind. I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: scared of you. Sebastian Bach of skid Row another massive
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: model train enthusiast, and Neil Young please don't come for
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: me together gang up on me. But to that point,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: this is what is considered. From from eighteen sixty two
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: around eighteen ninety, the golden age of American ten train making.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of famous train makers come into the game,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: especially after George Brown and Co. From Connecticut makes the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: first self propelled American model train. It was clockwork nuts
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: steam powered, and so you get companies that might be
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: familiar to model train buffs ives Holland Stafford, auth of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Bergman and Co. Francis Field and Francis James follows they
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: sound a lot like watch companies, you know, like a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: classy yeah, watch company. But still they didn't have the
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: they didn't have all them we associate with model trains today.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: They just their designs were simple. They sold the train.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: The rest of the world old you might build around
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the train was.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Up to you, exactly, And that's part of the fun
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: of it, really is the modular nature of the whole thing, right,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: which we'll get into more of the accessory options in
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: a little bit. So train travel has now become a
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: bit more of a thing that you know, everyone can afford.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: It's not just used for industry. It's used for you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: moving moving people and for kind of you know, taking
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: more kind of pleasure trips. Right. So James Maxwell, as
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: we mentioned in that Medium article, writes that with the
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: increasing popularity of rail travel and the advent of mass
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: production techniques, the toy train industry really starts to take
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: shape in the late nineteenth century. This is when we
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: start to see Lionel, just an American company, and Merklen,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: which is a German company, start to really emerge as
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: kind of the main players in the game, especially in
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: terms of quality and affordability, kind of the balance between
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: those two right.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Right, right, So they're taking different approaches, like Mirklan focuses
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: on these really accurate, highly detailed replicas of locomotives and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: what's called rolling stock. Rolling stock is the term for
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: things like cargo units. Rolling stock just describes anything attached
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: or part of the train that is not the locomotive. Right,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: so your caboose sleeper car.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Percent think about getting stopped at a railroad crossing and
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: just seeing the line of you know, shipping containers blasting pass.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: That's rolling stock. That's rolling stock.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: And so Miriklin appeals to collectors who are really about
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: high quality and authenticity, and Lionel gets more of a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: reputation for these are fun model trains for kids and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: for serious hobbyists. And this history proves that this approach
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: works very well for Lionel. It was founded in nineteen
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: hundred by Joshua Lionel Cowen Cohen, and this company would
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: go on to become one of the most influential manufacturers
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: in all of the United States.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting too, because initially they weren't even manufacturing
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: these as a toy or as you know, a solution
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: for these hobbyists. We can totally picture this if we
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: think of the classic toy store, you know, department store
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: kind of window dressing operation with the train, the model
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: train going around and around a track. It's maybe you know,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: elevated up in the ceiling, right, and that is what
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: the original Lionel designs were meant to do. The Electric
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Express was designed to be a particularly fetching window display
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: for toy stores.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it worked by golly by gum because you know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: at this point when they designed their first train, Electric
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Express and show it in toy stores, they're working in
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a world where most people are not going to have
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: electricity in their house. So that's this huge appeal. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: by the time we hit nineteen oh six, they're moving
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: so quickly. They start companies start selling pre assembled tracks,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: you can get different rolling stock and engines, and this
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is where the modern Lionel train company really begins to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: take shape, because look, yeah, it might not be fancy,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it might not be the locomotive equivalent of a Philip
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Ptek or something, but we we know people were saying, hey,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: these are really good toys. They do have a lot
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: of quality, and then Lionel does something that's even smarter.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: They introduce all these cool little bells and whistles sometimes
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: literally cool little bells and whistles, but like smoke generators,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: remote control systems, all the fun stuff.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Well it's neat too, because you know, these early Lionel
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: trains were powered by batteries, early kind of versions of
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: batteries known as wet cells, which are you know, these
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: little things that are filled with corrosive acid, which of
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: course were replaced largely by I believe dry cell batteries,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: although I do you know, certain batteries you get to
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: this day, like energizer or whatever. If you leave them
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: in something for long enough, they do start to corrode,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: similar to the kind of you know, corrosion you'll see
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: on your car battery. So there is still some kind
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: of nasty chemical inside these batteries today, right, Yeah, there's
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: still some.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Weird stuff going on, but'll you run into that with
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of batter But I.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Think the early wet cell batteries were real nasty, and
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: then they were eventually replaced by transformers, the electric transformer,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: the one ten volt and in the early nineteen hundreds,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: of course, electricity was still not a sure thing to
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: be in everybody's home, and there was a lot of
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: fascination around that. And as we mentioned, trains were already
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: steam powered. Trains were already kind of representative of this
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: idea of the future and innovation, and so electricity was
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: of course as well. And to incorporate that into a
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: toy that had this aspirational quality already and already represented
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: something that was already kind of considered this image of
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: you know, productivity and ingenuity and the American spirit and
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: all that stuff, it makes sense that they would have
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: taken off.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, agreed.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And there's one thing that they didn't predict amid all
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: their smart business plans, the Great Depression, which again I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: think is just a terrible name. So the nineteen twenties
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and nineteen thirties, or this real Halcyon era, we'll get
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to that later too, Halcion era for model trains, it's
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: golden age.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: It's very popular amid the populace.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: They would go popular by the populace, popular with the people,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and the model train layouts. There's kind of like an
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: arms race of who can make the most allowed apparate
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: expanse of ones, put your buildings in there, maybe have
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: lifelike scenes, you know, look at that it's a little
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: painted mailman. And people dedicated. Some people got really into
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: it and dedicated like the entirety of their free time
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to perfecting every detail about this the way you know,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the way we play Skyrim.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Right, But really, would you consider the Great Depression to
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: be an oxymoron?
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I guess technically not really, because I know that you know,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: great can just mean.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: That's I guess jumbo shrimp or something.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: You know, you're right, right, so, But but I do
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I think they could have.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know, they had a lot going on when
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: they're trying to.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Come up with that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: You really think there was a committee meeting to name it.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: I think it probably, much like you know, the Great War,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: just sort of sort of came up on its own organically. Yeah.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And liontel O, their own website, points out that because
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: there was the crazy Gill did age boom in the twenties,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: model trains became much more affordable. People were kind of
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: getting into escapism. They wanted to forget World War One,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: or as they just called it, World the World war,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: and now the credit system is rolling out so more
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and more people can afford luxuries that once upon a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: time would not have been feasible for them.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: American dream aka debt for Life, debt for life. So
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Lionel has ads in every imaginable medium. They're in boys magazines,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: they're in a Saturday evening post, they're in all the newspapers.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: They get celebrities to endorse them. They even have branded advertising.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: There's a Lionel radio show, and they had slogans that
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: were like, real enough for a man to enjoy, simple
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: enough for a boy to operate.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Also, guys jumping real quick.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I got the Tampa Bay Times up and they say
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: one of the people who named the Great Depression was
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: actually Herbert Hoover. He would refer to it as a
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: depression when he was still in office because it sounded
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: less worrisome to him than a panic. But it was
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: also a guy by the name of Lionel Robbins no relation,
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: who was a British economist who would name it the
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: Great Depression in nineteen thirty four.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Well, they could both stand to take some crowdsourcing the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: next time they name stuff. But yes, the Great depression.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: If you're listening to the show, you are very familiar
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: This is a.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Terrible time for the United States and indeed globally. Right
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: before the Great Depression hits, these Lionel catalogs are becoming
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: their own kind of annual publication for kids, you know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like like the when Lego releases a catalog, or when
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Sears or Aikia does, it's something aspiration, and so it
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: seems like the model train is part of or it's
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: indicative of a successful family. You hang out with your
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: family and play with the trains together, you look through
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the catalog together and pick your favorites.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: During the entirely depressing Depression, Lionel, along with a lot
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: of other toy companies, of course, struggled because this was
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: no longer a necessity. You know, people probably went back
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to the old European ways of whittling toys for their children,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: you know, making the flute out of some reds or something.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to be dismissive, but it definitely was
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: not something that was in the budget, right, Yeah, that's right.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Staving off financial ruin quickly became the primary concern for
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the majority of the United States and Lionel, like many
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: other companies, was also struggling. They entered receivership, which is
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: sort of a way to keep yourself from the precipice
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: of bankruptcy, and they were going to go under completely.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: They would have been a thing of the past were
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: it not for a partnership they made with none other
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: than Walt Disney. They debuted the Mickey and Many hand car.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: It's a one dollar wind up, which would have been
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: like one of those classic mining carts, right where like
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: a seesaw kind of situation with Many on one side,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Mickey on the other. And if you ever are lucky
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: enough to be in San Francisco, I highly recommend checking
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: out the Walt Disney Family Museum where they have a
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: display of all of this kind of stuff and Disneyland,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: disney World, anything affiliated with the actual Walt Disney Company
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: probably wouldn't because some of these toys, you know, and
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: this era of stuff could have even ventured into the
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: realm of problematic times. Oh yeah, but you do see
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: the Mickey mini hand car again, like to your point
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: a buck which was a lot of money back then
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: but was still more affordable than some and Lionel saw
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the success of this, and they decided to follow up
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: with similar designs, the Union Pacific, the Hiawatha, and the
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Flying Yankee, and by around nineteen thirty five they were
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: able to get out of that receivership because they were
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: once again profitable.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And just for perspective here too, one of the brilliant
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: things about the Mickey and Minni toy is that a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: dollar was a lot more than it is now, but
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: it was still very affordable, more so than a lot
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of fancy locomotives. So if we could inflation calculate a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: little bit due one dollar nineteen thirty four is.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Drum roll please backs, can we guess?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Maybe twelve ninety nine ish.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Not too far. It's it's uh drum roll again, were
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: killing the drum rolls. It is twenty three dollars in
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: sixteen cents, which is surprisingly affordable. You know, that's like
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a Lego kit.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: It's a Lego kit or maybe eight circa of the
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: nineteen nineties Ninja Turtle vehicle, remember those. I remember the
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: figures more expensive. The figures were roughly five bucks, I
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: remember that, Yeah, and then the vehicles would have been
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: roughly four x that. I would say, oh, man, the
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: one that flung pizzas. Remember that it was like a
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: like a hum v that had like a catapult on
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: the back that would fling pizzas. That was cool.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And I remember I had the van where the door
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: would open up and the top right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, aside a machine gun almost things that does not
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: exist in the show.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: No, maybe in the comics. So Lionel becomes profitable again
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty, as we said, And there is another
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: thing that they did not predict, which was World War two.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: So World War two has a huge effect on every
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: single manufacturing industry. It's really interesting. We did an episode
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of Car Stuff about this year's back. Automobile production went
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: down to pretty much zero actually too literally zero because
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: people were busy making weapons of war. The world shifted
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to wartime production, and everything was everything was prioritizing that.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So the production of toy trains also starts to decrease
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: because of the materials you need to make them.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: It's so funny too, because you know, we just did
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: a couple of episodes on Candy and we talked a
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: good bit about how some of the companies that they
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: sort of repurposed wartime manufacturing equipment to make their weird
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: pill shaped candies. So once the war was over, they
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: had to pivot back. Some companies are set up just
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: for that kind of manufacturing, and the war end is what
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: do we do with all of this gear. Maybe let's
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: make some weird flavorless sugar tablets. But yeah, so they
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: you know, again, they pivoted to doing wartime manufacturing, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: then once the war ended, and then that changed.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, make no mistake, after surviving the Great Depression,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: when they become a defense company, they make a lot
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: of money from it because the wallet is open. They
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: just don't make toy trains. And then they said, we're
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: not going to give up on this. They're better times ahead.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Let's try to be prescient, let's get in front of it.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: And what they did next was somewhat kixotic. They they
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: weren't able to make trains, so they started making They
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: kept making their magazine, and they started telling sons and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: fathers in particular, like go ahead, plan your post war railroad,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you know, like think about the better days and talk
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: about weaponizing aspiration. That's brilliant, and that takes them well
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: into the nineteen fifties.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: So are they are They basically saying like, you can't
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: get this stuff yet, but like you plan ahead and
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: then then you'll be ready to go once production resumes. Yes,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: that's smart.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's it's a gamble, but it's really it's
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: so smart that their competitors probably thought they were a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: little bit idealistic, or maybe they weren't thinking things all
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the way through, or they were being foolish, but their
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: gamble paid off. In the nineteen fifties were the halcyon
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: days of Liodel, and the company itself says this. They
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: had record profits, some of their most successful model trains ever.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: They had a television show for a second. But when
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: they had that television show, that's when the public, like
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the zeitgeist began to shift because now people have a
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: new piece of technology that they're fascinated.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Well, and it can be anything, right television, you want
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: to watch trains? There it is. I mean you got
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: to think about it. Man Like people were largely doing
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: this stuff because in order to experience this kind of thing,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: you had to have it physically. You had to be
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: able to touch it and move it around and build it.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: And you know, we know that television has certainly had
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: various negative impacts on productivity individuals, you know, and kids,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: perhaps the idea of brain rot and all of that
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: and being a little bit just overly commercialized and sort
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: of reducing people's imaginations. But of course all of that
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: stuff comes in cycles as well. So while initially TV
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: offered people this escapism that model trains just couldn't really
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: compete with, and of course, a little bit later video games,
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: and then of course they were cheaper plastic toys that
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: were advertised on TV, and you know, game magazines and
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: action figures and things like that. Nostalgia comes back around.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: It always does.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Also, I just got to take a second and share
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: condolences with all our fellow ridiculous historians who have lived
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: long enough to see an era of time familiar to
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: them become nostalgia, like the nineteen nineties or the early
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: two thousands.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: You know that that one stings man. The two thousands.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: It hits weird, It hits you when when you hear
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: our radio colleagues playing these things on the oldie station.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, you're starting to see anniversaries for records that
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: you remember, like that came out yesterday and it's the
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: twenty or thirty year anniversary. Oh my god. I mean
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: it's cool, you guys.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Know, Like in just a few weeks, I'm going to
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: see Transatlanticism and give Up by post Service and death
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Cab for the second time.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Twentieth anniversary.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: That's like ten year out in five twenty years one.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: I'm more of a postal service than death Cappers, And
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I'm going to see that show as well in Atlanta
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: later this year. But I just remember clearly where I was,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: what was going on when that give Up record came out.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I'm with you, Ben, I think we've
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: all experienced this. Anyone of a certain age, we'll understand
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: what this help.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Like. Yeah, it'll happen to you too. If your teacher
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: is having you listen to this episode on model Trains
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: for a school thing, just think about it. Twenty twenty
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: four is going to be an oldies era one day,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: sooner than you think, folks.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: So anyway, the.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Hobby again, it kind of loses out to this new
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: fascination with television, but there are always going to be
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: these very dedicated enthusiast and collectors and they keep the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: hobby alive. In the late twentieth century model trains actually
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: experience a revival thanks to that nostalgia. And now you
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: can have you can leverage new technology tracks right right
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: your train systems, even cooler digital control systems. You know,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: you can you can replicate if you want to spend
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the time and money, you can replicate a full scale
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: railroad pretty accurately.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: I may have mentioned this a time or two on
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: the podcast, but like i'm I have recently in the
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: last year gotten really into modular synthesizers and modular synthesizers
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: a very similar money pit of perfectly customizable nerdy you know,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: sound creation toys, and that is also what you get
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: with modern model trains. You can pick every aspect of
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: it down to like you said, the painted figures, you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: the trees, the buildings, what kind of lead you know,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: engine you might have, and you can have multiples and
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: all these switchers and lights and it's it's pretty endless,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: you know, if you want to go down that particular
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: rabbit hole.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: And what I think I think is also fascinating with
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the model trains here is that there's still there are
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of adults who are super into them, but
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: there are so many crazy facts about model trains right there.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'd love to just share a few of these that
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: I got from the Charles Rowse Supply Company, America's largest
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: train store. The most pricey model train ever sold was
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: a Lionel train sold in two thousand and six for
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Neil young Byett.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: We don't know, but my I wouldn't be surprised if
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it were a very well to do I would assume
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: it's a very well to do person after me. The largest,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the largest train set on the world right now, per
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: the Guinness Book of World Records is Minnie Attila Vonderland
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: in Hamburg. It has thirteen hundred trains, ten thousand, more
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: than ten thousand carriages, one hundred thousand moving vehicles like trees.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: You name it. I want to go. We can get
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: work to pay for that trip. It might be a
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: forgiveness view permissioning fair. We have to we have to
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: really sell it out. Yeah, so and you have.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: To get Max and there question, well, Pepper, it's wre things.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I think one thing we do have to deliver on
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: here is uh, you know we mentioned previously the games
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: of Model the scales, the ratios.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: So maybe let's yeah, let's for anybody's interested in getting
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: into the model train hobby or the world of model trains,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: what kind of what should they know about scales?
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a couple of terms, and we've already kind
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: of discussed this. The scale of a model train is
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: its size relative to the proportion of the real thing.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: If you want to sound like you're in the know
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: and model training communities, the real thing is referred to
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: as the prototype, which is pretty cool. We start off
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: with something called g scale, which is I believe the
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: law largest of the standard scales.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: This comes from Layman Big Trains or Lehman Gross bat
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: and they have a lot of variation in scale, but
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: like you could get one that's one to twenty or
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: one to thirty two. But generally those scales, or even
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: if they're different scales, the trains themselves will run on
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the same gauge track.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: That makes sense, it would get too comple. You have
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: to have some standardization in order for it to all
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: kind of gel together. And again, sorry not to get
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: you nerdy into the modular sense stuff, but even though
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: there are all different sizes and fill up different spaces
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: in Iraq. They all use many of most of them
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: use the same size screw holes to affix them into
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: these racks. Even though there's tons of different manufacturers that
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: make all kinds of different stuff, there should be some
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: basic standardization in order for these companies to be able
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: to kind of play together in the same space.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Sure, and then we've got other things like the.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: The o's we talked about.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I believe the earlier os some of the bigger ones
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: right right right, And Lionel still makes O scale trains
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and accessories along with a couple of other well, a
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: couple of other companies. Shout out to uh, the Payter
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: familius of our pals, Max and Alex. Uh, mister Williams
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: would have an O scale train around the Christmas tree
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: every year.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: You haven't even invoked that image. That's another wonderful kind
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: of classic Golden Age image, you know, very similar to
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: like the Fao Schwartz kind of window dressing stuff. That
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: that model train going around and around the Christmas tree.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: That's pretty nostalgic stuff right there. Yeah. And when I
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: say biggest, by the way for OSK, I think I'm
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: more referring to more most popular. Ah, yes, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: And then of course there's h O scale, there's in
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: scale Z scale.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Look, what we're saying is if you are remotely interested
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: in model trains, there is a wide world of stuff
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to choose from, and there are a ton of people
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: who want to experience that with you. Noel Max sent
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: us something that I'm surprised I didn't know about because
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I love these kinds of specific events. There is a
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: model train and rail Rodiana show that comes to Atlanta,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: was here in January.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: Awesome, Okay, I.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Want to go see a model train show.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: I do choill you not being lucky? We got another
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: one May fourth, nine am to two pm and it is.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: In akwardly busy doing Star Wars stuff. I'm just joking.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't do that, you know, May the
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: fourth with you. Oh, that's right, it's a thing now.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: That sounds cool. I would love to go to that.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: And by the way, when I mentioned Sebastian Bach earlier,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: largely from from skid Row, I largely know about his
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: love of model trains because of a particular season of
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: the Canadian kind of sitcom Trailer Park Boys that involves
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: the heist of a particularly expensive model train from a
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Canadian model train expo, and it sort of follows the
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: trailer park boys around throughout the entire season and it's
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun. Want to throw one more thing?
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: We just have to say it because, you know, being
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: an American based show, we love some hyperbole, we love
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: some superlatives. You might ask yourself, well, guys, what is
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the largest single model train engine? The answer is the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Thomas the tank engine that was built for a special
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: tour by BBC Visual Effects. It weighs one and a
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: half ton.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: What.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can still call that a
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: model train, So I you know what, we'll have to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: write to get US world records.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: If it's smaller than a train though, and it works
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: the same way, it's a miniature, yeah.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I guess so, yeah, miniature can be anything smaller.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: And last thing for me because this is something that
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: maybe we should have mentioned earlier on. But if you're
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: wondering how model trains are powered today we talked about
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: the early steamy ones and the battery ones and then
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: replaced by the transformer. It's interesting because they're actually powered
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: largely the way subways are powered through a current that
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: is carried and transmitted into the engine for all intents
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: and purposes, or the transformer through a powered rail that
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: has like you know, either soldered or clipped power current
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: running through it that comes from a power supply. So
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: part of the modular nature of model trains also comes
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: down to like wiring up the power and if you're
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: not careful, I don't know what you're doing, you could
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: accidentally give yourself a zapp, right.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: Max, Oh, absolutely, And that had me thinking it's the
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: future spoiler. I was researching something else that is on
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: tracks and that's called third track. The third track me
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: in the power track, and there was something else that
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: is now a two track, but they did with a
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: third track and had very bad const questions.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: So before that episode coming up, guys.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you find yourself in Molden, Massachusetts, do
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: stop by the Charles Rose Supply Company. They are the
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: world's largest dealer of Lionel trains and I think they're
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest just model trains stores in general around.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: So if you ever have a specific a need for
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a weird, specific trip or adventure, please folks come to
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: us because we can help you out. Monster cars, what
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: else model trains. We're getting into this weird things modular sense,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: all of the legos.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: We had an entire episo, We had two episodes to
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: complain about fonts.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Yeah. We also have an episode that's sort
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: of been in the kiddy for a while about the
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: history of women in electronic music and sound design and
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: film scoring and things like that. And maybe we can
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: sneak a little bit of nerdy modular synth stuff and
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: history into that one, if you guys would indulge me.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: But yeah, really excited about all this stuff that we've got
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: coming up. Great tea for a future episode there, Max
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: and boy, I never knew there was this much to
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: know about model trains.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer and research associate
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: for this episode, mister Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: who composed this slam and track you're here in. Thanks
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to Eve's jeff Coat Jonathan Strickland ak the Quizz who
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: one hundred.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: Percent digs model trains.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: I know it, I just I know the man well,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: he is a He's a model train head. Huge.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Thanks to A. J. Bahamas Jacobs, who is as as
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: all kind. He's ahead of all kinds is his head
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: is full of all kinds of esoteric and fascinating knowledge.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, Eve's Jeffcoat who maybe returning soon. I just want
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to give her a shout out twice. Gabe, Lucy a
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: lionel themselves, and thanks to you.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: And you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,