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Allan
Spitz, owner of The Red Caboose
in Midtown,
Manhattan, giggled as he removed
a $1,700 "O" scale
engine from a glass case above
the register. I should take this
down more often," he said,
dusting off the top and thumbing
his glasses against the bridge
of his nose. A heavy man in black
sweatpants and an aged cowboy
in full regalia exchanged coy,
excited smiles and crowded around
the train to admire it. Minutes
later, all three were engaged
in a conversation involving Diesel
engines, "Heavy Pacifics," Germany
and the Japanese.
In
model train world, Spitz explained, the letter "O" refers
to a locomotive that's "one-48th the size
of an actual train." "Every dimension‹whether
a window, door or person‹is in that proportion," Spitz
added. The popular "O" scale model
is almost twice as big as an "HO" train,
whose ratio is 1:87, Spitz noted, and significantly
larger than an "N" train (1:161).
Spitz related the figures with a wave of his
hand, as if he were discussing the stock market
or the weather.
The
store owner dismounted from the step
stool
and a calico cat named Kibri
(pronounced "Keebrey") brushed
up against his flip flopped feet. (The
resident feline's exotic name comes from
the acronym for a popular German model
train company.) "She's hungry," Spitz
said, and skipped down an aisle clogged
with model warplane parts and micro-mini
figurines to fetch a can of cat food
and a metal spoon.
Incidentally,
the man who seems to know "everything" about
the history of the railroad and the model
train industry‹"including
train scales that died," he said‹is "not
a hobbiest." "I did some train
modeling in the past, but I grew out
of it," he explained. Actually,
it's precisely his breadth of knowledge
that prevents him from enjoying the hobby. "I'm
a perfectionist," he conceded. "My
standards are so high that I don't think
I could ever comply."
Spitz
got involved in the model-building
business "scarcely several decades
ago" when his love of constructing
model ships landed him a job in that
department at Polks, a former "hobby
store" in lower Manhattan. After
filling in for an employee in the store's
model train department, Spitz "fell
in with the gang there," he said.
In 1970 he opened his own specialty shop
on West 45th Street, between Fifth and
Sixth Avenues, before moving across the
street in 1994.
Part
of what motivated his re-location,
he said, was the new shop's historical
significance: Between 1942 and 1973,
a woman named Mrs. Webster ran "the
largest train store in the world devoted
exclusively to model railroads" in
that very same space. "This is an
important site," he declared.
The store-owner retrieved from behind
the counter a book that features black
and white pictures of the train store's
matron amid model train merchandise.
According to Spitz, Mrs. Webster's gender
was also novel, as train modeling is
primarily a male oriented hobby, he said.
Why is that the case?
"Males are more interested in mechanical
things," he said, pointing out that
more men than women work as machine operators
and "high voltage electricians." In
fact, he said, through decades of involvement
in the industry, he's only encountered
two women who were "active modelers."
Despite
the gender discrepancy, however, Spitz
said he believes that the hobby "cuts
across all socioeconomic backgrounds." "Our
customers range from bike messengers
up to CEOs," he said. Some of the
Red Caboose's better-known clients include
actor Nicholas Cage and musician Rod
Stewart, though the store also sells
to a host of developmentally challenged
individuals. Spitz also noted that a
high percentage of train modelers are
dentists, most probably because they
like to work with their hands.
The
store owner turned to greet a "sleuth
from Fox News" who inquired about
his order of a specific train part from
a specific company. "He's a collector," Spitz
said, pointing at the customer. "He
collects old German trains." Unfortunately,
Spitz related, such reverence for what
was once "the biggest industry in
America" is "in terminal decline." The "sleuth" agrees. "Hobbies
have a lot to do with what people see," Spitz
said. "People don't see trains as
much any more." Spitz also blames
the decline on the popularity of the
Internet. "Kids are less interested
in building things," he said.
Those
who still construct and collect models,
however, seem irreversibly ardent
about their hobby. "Model railroads
keeps you alive," gushed a 55-year-old
lawyer named Jerry. He explained how
train modeling got him through two divorces‹but
then corrected himself. "My obsession
actually caused two divorces," he
admitted. "My second wife threw
me out because I was more interested
in trains than in her."
"Jerry remembers his father putting
him on the New York Central Railroad," Spitz
offered, and Jerry grinned. "It
was so exciting to watch trains," he
remembered. "It was like a drug
addiction." A dark-skinned male
burst into the store, closely followed
by a woman who looked over and rolled
her eyes. "We call it the 'gotta
have one' hobby," laughed Jerry. "You
gotta have one of these and you gotta
have one of those."
Spitz
fiddled with the engine of a train
(he's also the local fix-it man) and
rang up his next customer with inky fingers.
He acknowledged that his business‹like
many businesses‹suffered tremendously
after Sept. 11, but also noted that modeling
devotees never flagged in their support.
(Jerry, for example, still spends up
to $1,200 each month on his hobby.) Jerry
removed a photocopy of his "next
conquest" from the inside pocket
of his suit, and Spitz nodded approvingly,
though still maintained that train modeling
is not the sport for him.
"My work doesn't equal my vision," he
said, explaining that a model is supposed
to be an "exact" reproduction
of the original. "I'm one of those
perfectionist types: If I can't do it
perfectly, I don't want to do it all."
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