(A thinly-disguised cat story)
Tinplate 0-gauge came into my life through finding a large box full of French Hornby track at a street market, which looked like it had been to a few rainy markets before. But it was cheap, and I had this vague notion of maybe cleaning it up and selling it on at a local swapmeet. Which of course I never did, returning from the next swapmeet with a train instead: a rather tatty JeP 2-4-0 streamliner with three goods wagons, being a bargain from a dealer who'd had a good day and didn't want to pack it up again.
At the time (late 80s) I was living in my first apartment in Brussels, together with the girl who’s now my wife and two cats, both called Fruumpie (I’ll spare you all the etymology, save to say it means quite the opposite to how it sounds in English). Little Fruumpie was quite an intelligent cat; smart enough to stay out of this story while keeping a wary eye on proceedings from a distance. Fat Fruumpie on the other hand may’ve been a bit dim sometimes, but was very sociable and always took an interest in what I was doing. Like the very first time I tried out my new old train.
A week’s worth of evenings cleaning track and another week building a station saw me through the wait for the transformer I had ordered somewhere, and the next weekend I could finally have a go with it all. I had just started laying out a good-sized oval on the floor when Fat Fruumpie ambled over to see what I was up to, and to sniff at a pile of connecting plates in case they might be edible. Not liking the smell and soon losing interest in my monotonous activities, she lay down inside the oval and looked a bit bored. Until I put the loco and tender on the track, and put on some power. The buzzing of the motor made Fruumpie prick up her ears, and when the loco slowly got going she sat up to take in this new development.
Still sitting inside the oval, Fat Fruumpie watched with puzzled interest as this strange and noisy black animal slowly moved along the track in front of her. The loco kept going round the oval, and Fruumpie saw it was about to get behind her back. That might not be altogether safe, so she got up, turned round, and sat down again to watch the train. Which kept going, picking up speed, and was soon on its way behind her back again. So Fruumpie got up, turned round and sat down again... three more times before it dawned upon her that maybe it might be easier to watch things from outside the oval of track.
But just as she was crossing the rails, there was the loco rapidly bearing down on her. Fat Fruumpie leapt in the air and ran off in panic. Not for long, however. First she peered round the corner, and saw the train still going round. So she quickly jumped onto the sofa, and looked over an armrest. The train was still going round, seemingly oblivious to her. So off the sofa she came, and with a splendid hunting crawl, belly low to the ground, she first hid behind the box of track and then took up position behind the station building. No matter that the station wasn’t big enough to hide even half of her, the train was still moving on the other side of the oval and obviously hadn't spotted her there. Looking just over the station roof, Fat Fruumpie tensed, braced herself and, just as the loco came past, she jumped up and WALLOP!!!
The loco went upside-down and back-to-front, the tender went flying for several feet. And Fat Fruumpie made another frightened jump and getaway, for she clearly hadn’t counted on this being a hard heavy object instead of some soft animal of sorts. But she peeked round the corner again, and saw the train still lying there. So she cautiously moved over for inspection, giving the loco a sniff to find out if it was really dead. Clearing her nose of ozone with a snort, she evidently decided she’d defeated the strange creature. So with a final “what are you laughing at” look in my direction, she settled down to sleep on top of the track.
In later years Fat Fruumpie would still have a go at a passing train - though a mere 'perfunctory swipe' compared to the first encounter related above.
Paul Vreede
HRCA 2899
This inaugural post was first published in the Journal of the Hornby Collectors Association
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