Willing to wager all the loose change in my pocket that it's the letter about using Lionel uncouplers to hold unused cars on the wall. BTW, my pockets are empty...Gary
I think it is the fact that the April issue comes in February.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I quickly scanned the magazine three times before I found it. It wasn't as obvious as it has been in recent years. In the past, a photo usually gave it away.
Thanks for ruining the surprise, Gary.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Yeah, this one was kind of boring looking so I skipped it. Upon reading it...it's actually rather silly - they have done better. The hook was the guy's wife's name, April.I didn't even remember this was the April issue till this thread.
Having long since past the age of 12, April Fools jokes are more than a bit foolish in my view - not one of MR's better traditions.
Sheldon
Phoebe Vet I think it is the fact that the April issue comes in February.
Yes, that fact is joke enough for the whole year.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Having long since past the age of 12, April Fools jokes are more than a bit foolish in my view - not one of MR's better traditions. Sheldon
I'm with Sheldon on that.
BrianinBuffalo I thought it was the Security Gate article.
I thought it was the Security Gate article.
I like that article, and was aware of Lance having those for some time since I follow his blog and other progress on his site. I'm planning to add some gates similar to that to my layout.
Rob Spangler
LION has several high powered magnets that came from hard disk drives. Him uses them to hold tools and even a hot soldering iron. Him thinks they could hold a freight car without any problem. Him had to page through the issue several times before he found the joke.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I knew I should've done the article about using pocket change as a way to weight my N scale cars.
SP&S modeler, 1960's give or take a decade or two for some equipment.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SGTDUPREY?feature=guide
Gary DuPrey
N scale model railroader
Dunno about N scale, but I use pennies glued in my HO cars for weights all the time. About the cheapest weight material there is.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
dimes set upright. they'd make a good looking coil load for gondolas.
I started reading the article because the one just in front of it interested me. The further I got into it I said to myself hhhmmmmm. What months issue is this? Yep it was April. Funny Funny stuff.... Brought to you from the warped minds once a year at MR.
Thanks guys for the laugh!
RMax
Hey, we used pennies to weight my son's pinewood derby car a couple year's ago. Cheap and easy to measure out.
One the subject of April Fools jokes, I guess I don't get most of the jokes anymore. Perhaps it comes from working in Dilbert Land, but we have many things that have got to be a joke, yet are dead serious, I can no longer tell humor from an operating policy.
Canada just recently banned the penny, so I have a huge container of freight car weights !
Haven't seen the April issue of MR myself yet, but it sounds like the joke is on us with a $2.00 price hike !
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Sheldon:
I respectfully disagree about the appropriateness of MR's April Fools annual joke! In this day and age we need all the humour we can get, hokey or not, because most of what is going on in the world right now is not very funny.
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
And here I thought the joke was the new Athearn releases......the center pull out ad for Broadway Ltd................the Walthers "upgraded" RDC-3
Dennis Blank Jr.
CEO,COO,CFO,CMO,Bossman,Slavedriver,Engineer,Trackforeman,Grunt. Birdsboro & Reading Railroad
I think it's more the quality of the joke - I don't think anything has topped the classic MR one on the pressurized basement. Several good followups came from readers who claimed to have tried it, too.
One of the better ones in more recent years was probably the No-Trak modular spec. Totally plausible, really, making modules or places where the tracks have been removed and turned to trails.
Can;t do away with humor, life doesn't have to be dead serious all the time. We are only as old as we think we are. Deny if you want, but even if you operate via strictly prototypical rules and methods, you're still playing with trains.
I think we should do an automatic Hump Classification Yard, in a Rube Goldberg fasion!
Here's how it works;A long HUMP line on a very slight grade, with a hard wired MTH Electric Coupler in the end....String/stage some cars (order matters, read on)....An uncopuler magnet & a track embedded bristle brush 3" ahead of that, near the crown of the Hump..A small streetcar style set of switching points in the bottom of the hump, electronically switched...A sensor system that has a counter built in, & tied to the yard switches....
To Operate, with one touch start;Hit the drop switch on the (retaining) MTH coupler..Cars slowy roll forward...The leade car hits the embedded track brush & retards the speed...The uncoupler magnet trips the couplers...They get bumped by the slack slam...Lead car goes over the hump, ramps up the race...The sensor & the counter flips the points & sends it down track 1...Resets for next car, then Track 2, & so on (Cuz we set the order of the cars in staging)...
Now, to me, that would be really cool, but I am not Rube Goldberg.....
The only April Fool's joke that works is one that brings irritated comment from those who did not realize it was a joke. if everyone figures it out, it is a "fail." Actually I read further into this particular one before its joke nature was made plain (at least to me), so in that sense it was one of their more effective ones.
I think a tremendous April Fool's joke would be to run a few pages of ads from the late 1950s, early 1960s -- with prices intact -- but delete the contact information so that nobody is sending money through the mail. It would be cruel, but fun.
Dave Nelson
jmbjmb Hey, we used pennies to weight my son's pinewood derby car a couple year's ago. Cheap and easy to measure out. One the subject of April Fools jokes, I guess I don't get most of the jokes anymore. Perhaps it comes from working in Dilbert Land, but we have many things that have got to be a joke, yet are dead serious, I can no longer tell humor from an operating policy.
We used pennies to weigh down the arm my sister's Barbie record player to keep it from skipping. I think they used a 10 penny nail for a needle.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Personally, I enjoyed it even though it took me in until almost the end. That made it funnier.
Enjoy
Paul
I haven't found it yet.
rrinker I think it's more the quality of the joke - I don't think anything has topped the classic MR one on the pressurized basement. Several good followups came from readers who claimed to have tried it, too. One of the better ones in more recent years was probably the No-Trak modular spec. Totally plausible, really, making modules or places where the tracks have been removed and turned to trails. Can;t do away with humor, life doesn't have to be dead serious all the time. We are only as old as we think we are. Deny if you want, but even if you operate via strictly prototypical rules and methods, you're still playing with trains. --Randy
I remember reading the story about the model railroader who pressurized his basement just so he could remove the columns holding up his main floor and not have to build curved track around them. And oh yeah, the dude had to wear a deep sea diver's suit to work on the layout! I was just a kid back then but they got me. Took me a few years to realize the article was an April Fools gag... Haven't thought about that piece forever! Thanks for reminding me.
rrinker Can;t do away with humor, life doesn't have to be dead serious all the time. We are only as old as we think we are. Deny if you want, but even if you operate via strictly prototypical rules and methods, you're still playing with trains. --Randy
I like humor as much as anyone however practical jokes and April Fools jokes where you try to see if you can get one or more people to believe something that is not true haven't fit my definition of humor since the fourth grade.
How could it not be? A padlock under the table? Seriously? No. April fools.
Wow, it sure appears many of you are unhappy people! Does the magazine do anything you like? I held off on reading this post about the April Fools Joke as it spoils the fun. Now it appears the biggest enjoyment people get from the joke, is from being the first to spoil it for everyone else. However, it does give an opportunity for those of you with crappy attitudes, to show them to the rest of us!
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
NP2626 Wow, it sure appears many of you are unhappy people! Does the magazine do anything you like? I held off on reading this post about the April Fools Joke as it spoils the fun. Now it appears the biggest enjoyment people get from the joke, is from being the first to spoil it for everyone else. However, it does give an opportunity for those of you with crappy attitudes, to show them to the rest of us!
Only SERIOUS humor is allowed in this hobby.
Now WHO let all the clowns in?