In Detroit last week assembled more than 200 people united by a common passion—the construction and operation of model railroads with such elaborate attention to detail and conformity to scale that they feel entitled to resent the word "toys." This was the third annual convention of the National Model Railroad Association, and its members discussed such things as the best ways of ballasting track and handling steam boilers with as much warmth as the operating vice president of the Southern would discuss parallel maintenance problems with the superintendent of his Atlanta division.
Stimulated by model railroaders in Europe, of whom Britain's George VI is one, the hobby has developed in the U. S. mostly during the past ten years. U. S. devotees include a number of cinema people, notably Wallace Beery and Rod La Rocque, Vincent Astor is another. The finest model systems in the U. S. are credited to Minton Cronkhite of San Marino, Calif., who rides in the cabs of real locomotives whenever he can. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe R. R. frequently borrows Mr. Cronkhite's equipment for its displays at fairs. The national association got under way three years ago, pushed by groups of Detroit modelers who believed that such an organization would impel manufacturers to a helpful standardization of parts. This turned out to be the case. Much progress was made last year.
The association charges dues of 50¢ a year to individuals, a smaller, wholesale rate to clubs. The hobbyists' magazine, The Model Railroader (20¢ a copy, $2 a year), last year sent a questionnaire to no less than 6,000 known aficionados of the hobby in the U. S. Editor and publisher of The Model Railroader and leader of the association is Albert Carpenter Kalmbach, who in actual practice would never oil his model locomotives with the full-sized, long-snouted railroad oil can he posed with at Detroit (see cut). When Albert Kalmbach was five years old he made such a remarkable drawing of a locomotive that his teacher thought he was lying when he claimed it as his work. Naturally the costs of model railroading vary according to the individual's means, but The Model Railroader finds that the average hobbyist spends $200 to $250 a year. Typical assembly kit for assembling a baggage coach costs $10.50, a passenger coach $11.50. Biggest manufacturer of parts is Scale-Models Inc. of Chicago, headed by tall young (34) Elliott Donnelley, who left the big printing business of which his father is chairman, Chicago's R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., because of his enthusiasm for model railroads.
Main item of interest at last week's convention was the railroad built by the Detroit club on a scale of 17/64 inch to the foot. It is powered by 18-volt direct current, has 1,500 ft. of rolled steel tracks laid 1¼ in. apart, a 9-ft. spot-welded steel replica of New York City's Hell Gate Bridge. Visitors chuckled at the signs erected along this road at points where construction was under way: WPA PROJECT—SLOW—MEN AT WORK.