Closely Watched Trains at M.I.T.

The big men of M.I.T. and the little children of Boston crowded around the miniature trains of the "Tuckertown System" Saturday afternoon when the M.I.T. Model Railroad Club held an open House.

"We don't like to think of ourselves as a toy train club," said James L. Warshler '64, public relations man for the toy train club. He explained that M.I.T. is the only university in the country with a club simuluating automatic train operation.

At M.I.T. toy trains are not for children. Students build scale models of trains and construct the layout's elaborate control system. Some are working on thesis projects in Tuckertown; others are involved in government research for the Department of Transportation.

A series of flashing red and white lights on a board above the layout shows each conductor the position of every train and the direction in which it is headed. Sitting in booths above the layout, conductors control their trains by telephoning dispatchers--whose heads pop up periodically from between the tracks.

Saturday's atmosphere of refined Tuckertown technology, however, was broken by a sad moment of introspection. A conductor was demolished: "You've get cars strewn all over the tracks--just look at yourself." A broken man, he replied with a whine, "I can't even find myself!"