Columnist Susan Snyder: Special day is tough to track

Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 | 8:24 a.m.

Friday is national Take a Model Train to Work Day.

Fourth annual.

Why?

Evidently, not enough of us are already unemployed:

"C'mon, Larry. Time for the staff meeting," a co-worker says.

"I'll be there as soon as I get this coil coupler fixed," replies Larry, who is never again seen at a staff meeting.

The World's Greatest Hobby Web site, which sponsors the day, says a coil coupler is "A toy train connecting device that uses a solenoid (solenoid?) to open and close it; the electricity to operate the solenoid (solenoid?) comes via a device beneath the truck that slides along the track, activated when a button is pushed and current is provided."

Solenoid?

Some 500,000 adults nationally probably know what one is, the Greatest Hobby Web Site says (www.greatest hobby.com). They spend $500 million annually on model railroads, meaning they are far more likely than most to take a model train to work Friday -- or any other day.

"It's been successful," said Emily Boak, a New York City publicity agent who was hired by the Greatest Hobby people to promote the event.

And how is that measured? A survey of model train locomotives (that's what you and I would naively refer to as "the engine")? A survey of the number of Americans asked to work somewhere else after their supervisors spied the choo-choo and gave them the boot-boot?

Are enthusiasts supposed to take the entire train -- locomotive (engine), rolling stock (cars), track (got that one right)? Do they have to go in the night before to set it all up? Once it's set up, do co-workers get to play with it?

Don't call or e-mail. I truly don't want to know the answers.

Still, when we consider the entire spectrum of take-something-that-doesn't-belong-there-to-work days, a train could be the least annoying.

Nearly every employee has a tale about how a co-worker's cunning tot unplugged half the computer terminals in the office on Take Your Child to Work Day.

Take Your Dog to Work Day tales are best reviewed two hours after a meal. Most involve some form of slobber.

Take Your Cat to Work Day won't happen until we can figure out an easy way to lug the living room sofa with us.

Personally, I have trouble just honoring Take Your Work Ethic to Work Day.

When is that again?

Anyway, according to the press release (e-mail is the terrorists' true plot), Take a Model Train to Work Day "embodies the spirit of community and volunteerism" and celebrates the train hobby's big season, which extends through Christmas.

OK, I'll give them credit for volunteerism. Anyone who has ever set up a model train with the fussy little buildings, trees and teeny figurines -- or lived with someone who has done this -- can attest to the maniacal attention to detail required.

I suppose I should confess that at one point in our lives, The Other and I considered building a miniature Mesa Verde along the wall of the backyard to go with his steam-powered, G-scale garden train. But we said it aloud a couple of times and the urge subsided.

And neither of us ever considered taking the thing to work. But I may check his van, just to be sure ...