June 19, 2005

A hobby becomes an obsession once you decide to dedicate a whole floor of your house for the complex construction of a model train set

My fascination with trains has been there for as long as I can remember. Whether it was playing with dinky toys, drawing pictures or simply make sounds, anything to do with trains eventually turned into an obsession and I took up the hobby of model trains big time.

Model trains aren’t as simple as buying toys. You buy parts and then put them together with every part working as it should in a real train. My first model train measured around 2.5 meters by 1.6 meters. That was way back in 1992 and at the time I was in my second home, Holland. I had previously studied the art of making models through a variety of books and observing models on display at specialized shops. I spent hours and hours creating what eventually turned out to be my first model city. Though it wasn’t exactly a neat and professional attempt, I was still proud of what I had achieved and I still am.

In 1997 I bought a three-storied house and the whole of 3rd floor was reserved for my dream world. In 1998 I came to Pakistan and got married, my wife later helped me realize my dream. Of course the fact that she is an artist added finesse to my endeavour. She painted the walls as countryside and the roof simulating the sky; there were miniature houses and other related material that gave a new face and more realistic look. After a gap of 2 years during which I collected a lot of general and technical information, I started the project again, but this time it was very well planned and professional executed.

In the first phase the biggest effort was to plan everything good (which was not an easy job); one mistake could spell disaster. The design of the track layout itself was especially difficult. I had to go from a single track line to double with the help of turnout, then to four and so on till I reached to 10 tracks running parallel to each other. This was necessary by the area of the main station as it had 10 platforms. It was indeed a lot of geometry work.

Once this was done, I started with the second phase and with the creation of the details. A lot of place was reserved for daily life activities. To gather as many ideas as possible, I observed all that was happening around me in real life. I collected lots of ideas like, a house on fire, a roadside accident, a music band, an open market, a harbour, car parking, an industrial area, a road under repair, cable cars and mountains. Another wonderful idea came when I was in Switzerland for my holidays, to create a waterfall and a small fun area on the top of the mountains with snow and wild animals. I started working on these real life ideas and today I have successfully achieved almost all of them.

Building such a miniature city is a big challenge, and I had to face quite some problems. It is a very time consuming hobby and therefore the first problem was time management. Luckily I had flexible work hours; from seven in the morning till 3.30 pm. This way I had lots of time and could easily spend a few hours a day on my hobby, plus my weekends.

Another major problem faced was to keep all the trains updated since new technology is introduced every five or six years in the mechanics of the trains, similar to what happens in computers. You must have realized by now, how detailed this hobby is. Another thing to ponder here are that the repair of a train is very expensive. Therefore, I started learning how to repair and use all related materials myself. I am glad now to say that I have learned a lot and am able to do all the repair work myself and even help other hobby friends with their technical problems.

In 2000 I became father for the first time and in 2001 for the second time. My sons Shoaib and Rohaib both made sure that I did not give much time to my hobby, not that I am complaining in anyway. It wasn’t before 2002 that I began to give more time to my hobby and completed some wonderful projects, like building mountains all around and cable cars going right from the heart of the city to the top of the mountain. So much so that my hobby room has become the favourite hangout of my sons. They even know the names of all the top trains of the world like the ICE from Germany, the Thalys running from Amsterdam to Paris and always request me to run those trains.

Apart from these, that are part of my latest collection, but there is off course a number of local trains from Holland that they see every day when they go out. If we talk about history I cannot forget to mention the great trains like, Orient Express, Rheingold, Trans-Europe Express. My oldest son even knows how to operate model trains and the extra functions of the trains like smoke, sounds, horn, bell, brakes, headlights etc. These extra functions have taken the hobby to a new level of realism.

From 1996, a German based company started producing models with different sounds, among which are diesel locomotives, with heavy diesel locomotive sounds and steam engines with their steam sounds.

Throughout this passion of mine, my family has been very supportive of my endeavour. My mother with the cleaning as it is not an easy job to clean the small things; my wife with her continued help on colouring the buildings, figures and creating scenes concerning nature after mutual discussions.

Though I’ve never had any technical education, but this hobby of mine has really taught me a lot in this field. I guess it is a matter of interest. The whole model is on a big table of eight by three meters with hundreds of cables running under it. I remember once, Rohaib just walked under the table when he was two and grabbed some cables, which took me hours to repair. Since then I keep an eye on their activities whenever they are in the room.

About the miniature world itself, though it’s not a replica of some town or place, some of the model buildings exist in real in Germany and Holland. There are also scenes from Pakistan, like that of the Boating Basin in Karachi. If we talk of the scenery, there is a waterfall, mountains, greenery, forest, trees, parks, ponds. The main central station is very busy with 10 platforms including two for cargo.

My collection of trains includes those from Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Canada. I would love to collect from Pakistan but unfortunately those of Pakistan Railways are very hard to find. Some of the models do exist but in other colours, maybe in future I will give a try to let a train be coloured in PR colours. It will be great pleasure to have train from back home. Besides collecting all these models of trains, I also like to know their technical details like horsepower, year of make, number of produced units etc.

My future plans are to construct the overhead cables for electric trains to take power from overhead instead of from the track, real ballast on tracks, building of tunnels and model of cable car to be installed. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

If any one likes to know more can always send me an email to fauzimahmood@zonnet.nl and I would love to answer your questions.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)