Model trains are toy trains created to closely resemble actual trains. Playing with model trains is a popular hobby the world over. While creating model trains and railroads, all rail elements including trains, tracks, roads, scenery, signals etc., are recreated as scale models.
While toy trains have been around since early nineteenth century, these locomotives were simple and mostly rough-and-ready scale models. Electronic trains made their appearance in the twentieth century. These models were a little more sophisticated, although they were still not close to the precision available today. One of the earliest "realistic" model train layouts was the Madder Valley layout built by John Ahern. Built in the late 1930s, this layout soon became world-famous. The oldest model train village, Bekonscot, in Buckinghamshire, includes model trains from 1930s onward. Today, model trains are created with a lot of attention to detail to match the exacting standards of hard-core hobbyists.
People who use model trains as hobbies may indulge in simply owning a model train or recreating the look of a railway track and journey. Some model train enthusiasts also have bigger useable model trains. Many hobbyists spend substantial time in creating the scenery around the train tracks, adding bridges, artificial lakes, trees etc. These elements are made from materials such as cardboard strips, screen wires, plaster of paris, ploystyrene sheets or lightweight foam, fibreglass etc. Coloured sawdust and natural lichen are often used for grass and brushwood. While many cheaper model train sets run on battery, the more sophisticated ones may run using DC power with the positive and negative charges on the two rails. Some model train sets also use AC power on the three rail system.
Some of the famous model train makers include Hornby, Marklin, Lionel, 3MM and American Flyer. These makers create model trains in various scales. The most common model train scales are: H0 scale (00 in UK), G scale, Gauge 1, O scale, TT scale, N scale (1:160) and Z scale. While there are a few scaling standards, most manufacturers across the world have not yet agreed on one common scaling standard.
In popular culture, model trains have found frequent use. In the Hollywood film ‘Superman Returns’, a model train blows up in front of Lex Luther and his cronies. In several crime thriller books, such as ‘James Patterson’s Cat and Mouse’, a model train set is the subject of one of the book’s character’s many childhood grouses.
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