Evening star., 1940-02-04
Uses Cement
Roadbed for
Toy Trains
Scores of Gadgets
And Many Controls
Make 1t Unique
BY ROBERT A. ERWIN.


There is something Of a magician's
touch to the model railroad system
that George A. Robinson, jr., 13, has
built in the basement of his home
at 4408 Illinois avenue NV.
You press the first button of the
control box and of goes the pas
senger train around the bend, full
speed toward the tunnel, with the
whistle sounding a long, shrill "toot-
toot."
II you try the next button you
will find 1t sets a freight train in
motion. The freight chugs down
the track into the industrial area"
Of Georges system. Then George
pushes another button. The freight
stops almost In its tracks. George
reaches out, pulls lever at his
right, and bang, the little logs on
he lumber car roll out in front of
the sawmill.
Signal lights fash along the dou-
BILE track as George sits at his con-
troll box. Floodlights beam from
the railroad station, which is
equipped with an automatic starter
and stopper. If George wants to, he
can stop the passenger train at the
right end of the system, and his
miniature passengers can take buses
to the dock for a ferryboat trip to
the farm and country village on
the other side of a painted stream
George has two ferryboats, and they
move, too, on strings winding around
pulleys.
George, who attends Macfarland
Junior High School, plays the parts
of engineer, dispatcher, hagman and
brakeman as we'll as few others.
Electrical work in general and elec-
trio trains in particular are his
hobby.
Sees Exhibit at Fair.
Before school opened in Septem-
ber George visited the railroad ex-
hibit at the New York Worlds Fair.
He had been building and assem-
bling train models for year before,
so with the inspiration of the fair
he went to work. His present sys-
tenn, mounted on tables in the base
ment, is the result. George buys
trains, miniature figures and materi-
ais with money earned shovelng
snow or saved from his allowance.
A playmate once threw away a
miniature house, but George picked
it up and took 1t home. He put on
new top, some paint and con-
verted it into wayside station or
gateman's shack.
George bought a coal and gravel
loader and placed it between two
tracks. The loader dumps gravel
into one of the cars on the freight,
and when George presses button
the car dumps the gravel on the
other side. He has made many of
his objects out of cardboard. He
fashioned water tower from a
putty can.
When he laid the tracks he placed
them on a roadbed of cement that
he mixed himself. There is a rope
stopper" at each end of the tunnel
a miniature of those things that the
real railroads use to keep boXcar
riders from being knocked of when
trains start through a tunnel.
A painted expanse constitutes
Georges river" There are toy buses
running from the railroad tracks to
the dock. Il got the ferry idea both
at the fair and from the ferries at
Portsmouth, Va, where I used to
live and often ferried over to Nor
folk" George said.
"See the silo," he pointed out. II
made that out of cardboard. I used
the same thing for those little houses
on the mountainside over the tun-
mel"
Uses Tree Base.
"The platform that holds up the
whole railroad system was once used
under our Christmas tree" George
related. Nov mother has to find
something else to use as the base
and background for the tree every
Christmas"
George doesn't buy all his trains.
occasionally he goes to the bargain
table of a downtown store and swaps
trains brought in by other boys who
also want to trade.
AS a builder George started at
the bottom. His first efforts were
on a building set given him for
Christmas one year. He later took
up electrical work, some of which
he had learned from his father, an
air-conditioning engineer.
George often has audiences when
he sits at the control of his trains.
Sometimes his friends come in, and
sometimes thew look in. and their