A man's enthusiasm with toys and his train

By Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-02 14:06

This year, Lu made it to the Shanghai Guinness World Record for making the world's smallest "rice popper", the size of half one's fist. "My grandson demands popped rice every time he visits," Lu says.

In the 1980s, his interest in the mini train revived. "First I bought internal combustion engine models but lost interest soon as I can't make internal combustion engines myself."

One day he saw a picture taken in a park in Britain where tourists rode miniature steam trains. "I thought I could probably make that," he says, remembering the beginning of a sustained preoccupation.

Lu began collecting every piece of available information on steam trains, even in languages he could hardly understand. Texts in Japanese and German, figured on his bookshelf. He also purchased components from overseas to study them. A man's enthusiasm with toys and his train

After countless failures and tests, Lu finally saw his first steam train running in a summer evening in 2000. "Neighbors came to watch and took rides," he says.

Since then, he has made several more miniature steam trains and sold some of them. In a recent visit to Guangzhou and Shijiazhuang, he displayed his trains in exhibitions to promote the Shanghai World Exposition.

In the 10-sqm studio in his backyard, components are stacked on the shelves, covering three walls. In the middle, there are five lathes. "I melt and mold components in a stove," he says while connecting the tracks, 5 inches wide and more than 80 m long, in an oblong. He began to move the locomotive, one-twelfth of a real one, and four tenders on them with several helpers. The whole set weighs 60 kg and runs at a speed of up to 30 km per hour.

The small train, painted black, is an exact miniature replica of a real one. The 88-cm-long locomotive has a capped stack similar to a one-fen coin, a boiler the size of a rice bowl and a chimney of needlepoint proportions. Inside the cabin, there are a flight of steps, railings and stairs, seemingly existing only in a Lilliputian state.

The hand-grips are wrapped in steel, carved with patterns, to prevent burning and sliding from hands.

The tenders, 110-cm-long each, were made of wood and painted blue.

"It's all done," said Lu, pouring water into the boiler through a hole 1-cm in diameter and shoveling mini coals into the stove.

Steam billowed out and the pointer on the monometer began to rise. In 10 minutes, when clouds of steam flew from the chimney, Lu said the train was ready to move and took the driver's seat.

The crowd, watching for the last two hours, piled on, old and young. Fifteen passengers filled the tenders.

"It is starting," said Lu, pulling the whistle and turning the engine on. "I never call for passengers. Whenever the whistle sounds, crowds begin to gather."

The train moved forward slowly but smoothly, whistling and hissing on its way. Soon it came to a stop with passengers yelling excitedly, "We have arrived." New passengers hopped on.

Two hours later, Lu had used up the fuel but people were still unwilling to leave. "How wonderful it could be if there is a park where I can drive my train regularly and more people could enjoy the fun," he says.

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