Copyright 2000 T. Sheil & A. Sheil All Rights Reserved
Maybe you've seen these guys:
The skinny little fellow who shows up to run trains with nothing shorter than a Big Boy or Baldwin Centipede. The shortest car in his consist is the 72" Heavyweight. Never seen with any car or loco shorter than an E8. Of course, he runs nothing smaller than O or #1 gauge
The massive giant of a fellow whose entire consist is made up of ore cars, shorty "beer can" tanks, bobber cabeese and 44-ton switcher locos or smaller. And yes, it's all N scale!!!
The fellow who claims to be Mr. Scale himself, all the while running New Haven FA2s dragging a consist of old-time W&ARR Overton combines on a layout set in the Southwest. Of course, he gets everything from the "closeout" bin and brags he hasn't paid full price for anything.
The scale railfan who takes a fit every time he sees a train-set Lionel 4-4-2....can't seems to accept that some trains are toys.
The toy train operator who can't understand why the O Scalers don't let him run his Lionel 4-4-2 on their pike (Never mind that theirs is 2-rail to start with.)
The myopic genius with coke-bottle glasses who takes up N scale.
The other genius who jumps into G scale, despite the fact he has a 6' by 10' room in a rooming house.
Frequently seen: the wife who takes up the train hobby and immediately buys every Chessie she can see. Of course, it's because of the cat.
These folks sound too weird to be true, but they're more common than you think!
The wannabe railfan who goes to the local hobby shop and, to show the owner he's a great railfan, brags how he skillfully got bargains on several pieces like the ones in the showcase. Of course, he didn't buy them there.....and he brags about that, too.
The fellow at the train show or hobby shop who looks for the cheapest thing he can buy, then asks ,'Will it last?' He wants to be reassured that his $20 train set loco will perform as well and as long as that $500 brass steamer in the window.
You may have run across the man who brags about the size of his layout....massive....at least 20 by 40 ....even though you and everyone else in the room know he lives in a tiny cottage which couldn't fit a single 4 X 8.
Sometimes you get the crossover military modeler - actually, he had "wannabe" status among the tank buffs - whose idea of making a "military train" is sticking decals of panzer crosses on boxcars.... No repainting, no building, just a decal on cars from a typical UP or ATSF train set..... If you ask him for an historical precedent, you'll get a most imaginative tale that rivals sci-fi for its unreality.
There was the dummy who thought he could make a loco smoke by putting a pinch of tobacco in the stack.
How about the clown who is making an old-time Wild West railroad, and thinks that any car marked 'Western Pacific' will do? (Can you picture Butch Cassidy holding up a lash-up of F7s?)
Here's one - a man wanted to save money on track. He bought O three-rail tubular for his HO pike. Yes, the man tested it to see if an HO car would ride on the inner and one outer rail. He thought that one section of O could be used as double-track for HO..... He even wondered why nobody else ever thought of it!
If you have anything you can add to the list, please email me at webmaster@thortrains.hypermart.net We'd love to add to the list!