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How My Model Train Obsession Almost Caused an International Crisis
A satire about model trains, HOA battles, and the very hypothetical logistics of international bullet train theft.
This was never supposed to happen, but that’s the risk you take when your hobbies start getting ideas.
I collect Japanese bullet trains. They’re not the life-sized ones (yet); instead, I collect their tiny, glorious, N scale counterparts made by KATO Precision Railroad Models.
These little engineering marvels zip across my home at a scale of 1:160. In layman’s terms, that means 160 of each model train car lined up nose-to-tail would equal one full-size train car. That also happens to be the number of times I’ve had to explain to my family why we no longer use the dining room for its intended purpose.
To the uninitiated, they’re “just toy trains.” Cue the nails on a chalkboard playing in my head whenever I hear that description.
I view them much differently: They’re a portal into a quieter, more orderly universe where I control the timetable, the track, and yes, the occasional catastrophic derailment, which I classify as “planned urban renewal.”
But lately, things have… escalated. Let’s just say, there may or may not be a full-sized Shinkansen in my backyard. Hypothetically.
