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
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.....
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
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
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
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
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.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
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
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.
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
dimes set upright. they'd make a good looking coil load for gondolas.
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.
I knew I should've done the article about using pocket change as a way to weight my N scale cars.
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
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
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
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.
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet I think it is the fact that the April issue comes in February.
I think it is the fact that the April issue comes in February.
Yes, that fact is joke enough for the whole year.
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.
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.
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.
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