I always get them that early, last week of two months prior - so I will get May about a week before march actually ends. It was about the same even when I was mailed a paper copy. When they first started digital versions, I got both (I think that was the only way you could do it - you had to have a physical subscription and then there was an "add digital" option, but no pure digital subscription). I would get the digital version, and a couple of days later I'd get the paper copy, usually after I had already read the digital version, but still before the end of the month.
I don't remember a time when I was a subscriber it wasn't like this. But I think back in the day before my time it was more like, the end of the month you got the next month's issue, not 2 months like now.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I got my issue about 4 or 5 days earlier than usual, and when you consider that February is a small month (even with the extra day tacked on) it works out to about a full week early.
As for the Fool Joke . . . I found a mathematical mistake and a typo. Do either of those count?
And regarding Kato . . . I've been mispronunciating that for about 20 years (blame Bruce Lee). I am making a serious effort to correct and adjust, but Kah-toe still sounds a little funny.
LINK to SNSR Blog
ba&prrI think it's on page 37. Article on space saving industries
I don't think so, check this out on the Narragansett Pier RR, scroll down about 1/2 way, and a track diagram from the Sept. 1974 MRR.
Mike.
My You Tube
I thought it might have been the KISS metal loads, but not sure.
I cannot find it for certain.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
ba&prrI think it's on page 37.
Russell
csxns ba&prr I think it's on page 37. Might have something to do with a boxcar and a truck trailer.
ba&prr I think it's on page 37.
Might have something to do with a boxcar and a truck trailer.
Pretty lame if that’s it. I saw it and figured it was just an editorial error.
csxnsMight have something to do with a boxcar and a truck trailer.
I thought that was a simple error transposing the two numbers. Certainly nothing like good old Auric Goldfinger.
Maybe there isn't one... that would be tragic.
maybe 'creepy & kooky'?
mbinsewi ba&prr I think it's on page 37. Article on space saving industries I don't think so, check this out on the Narragansett Pier RR, scroll down about 1/2 way, and a track diagram from the Sept. 1974 MRR. Mike.
ba&prr I think it's on page 37. Article on space saving industries
If he's thinking it's the middle piece about the small coal yard - sorry, the Durham & Southern Railway was real, and Apex and Dunn are two actual towns in the state along the line. M/H. Head might be an unfortunate name, but probably real. Though the only oil tank I see in either photo is more likely oil or fuel for the company trucks, or maybe hydraulic oil.
So is it now ok to post what we think the April Fools is?
SeeYou190, I wanted to ask you what you'd think about a project I was thinking of, but at this time I forgot what it was.
Well, we're just kinda' takin' the long way around the barn, until more subscribers get their issue.
Nobody has yet confirmed just what it is, just conjecture.
PC101SeeYou190, I wanted to ask you what you'd think about a project I was thinking of, but at this time I forgot what it was
I forget what I went to the garage for in the time it takes me to walk there.
Feel free to ask me anything when it comes back to you.
Ok, I'll make another trip around the Barn. You just never know what you will find laying around that could be used for a Model Rail Road project.
rrinker I know which one you mean. I was thinking, this can't be real. Then I went to the URL - hmm, either someone went to WAY too much effort, or it really is a legit product.
I have been through the pages several times and I cannot find anything.
I know my reaction will be, "Oh, yeah! I knew that!" when someone here finally tells me.
York1 John
I wonder if advertisers pay a higher rate in the April issue because they know we are going to read every word real closely and carefully.
chutton01 rrinker I know which one you mean. I was thinking, this can't be real. Then I went to the URL - hmm, either someone went to WAY too much effort, or it really is a legit product. I'd have to agree that K.I.S.S. Method seems to exist as a real company, however their offerings on the website seem mostly to be track planning & laying templates, and foam cradles. No mention of bags of "scrap" metal for sale.Could this be a mutli-company conspiracy? Eh, probably not.
rrinker
I know which one you mean. I was thinking, this can't be real. Then I went to the URL - hmm, either someone went to WAY too much effort, or it really is a legit product.
I'd have to agree that K.I.S.S. Method seems to exist as a real company, however their offerings on the website seem mostly to be track planning & laying templates, and foam cradles. No mention of bags of "scrap" metal for sale.Could this be a mutli-company conspiracy? Eh, probably not.
"probably not" is probably correct, since two pictures of their products are shown in the new products section of the other model railroad magazine.
I think I know what it is- lets just say something that has been promised (in a couple of different forms) going on over 10 years (if not more)
York1 I have been through the pages several times and I cannot find anything.
I've read it forwards and backwards at least four times and can't find anything. Past April Fool's always ended with some reference that gave it away. Nothing like that this year. Too bad.
Ray
I've looked through it a few times and nothing jumps out at me as being "it". Maybe there isn't one this year and the joke's on us?
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
stokesdaMaybe there isn't one this year
I hope this is not the case. The annual April Fools Joke is an institution.
drgwcsI think I know what it is- lets just say something that has been promised (in a couple of different forms) going on over 10 years (if not more)
A new forum program? I didn't see anything about the promised new forum up date...
mbinsewi drgwcs I think I know what it is- lets just say something that has been promised (in a couple of different forms) going on over 10 years (if not more) A new forum program? I didn't see anything about the promised new forum up date... Mike.
drgwcs I think I know what it is- lets just say something that has been promised (in a couple of different forms) going on over 10 years (if not more)
Nope not a new forum program. I will believe it the "Day" it happens that is another hint.
I was just kinda' making a TIC statement. I just couldn't resist.
On the bottom example: The short line Narragansett Pier RR used a deck-girder bridge to unload raod salt in Peace Dale,R. I. The railroad already ran over ir, and a road already ran under it, so there was no additionaal work reqiured. Except the road was blocked by the salt.
ba&prr Except the road was blocked by the salt.
Look at the link I provided, and scroll down to the RR's track layout that was in the 1974 MR.
You'll see the road goes through, but next to road was a seperate access to under the bridge, and stub end road, where the salt was unloaded.
Look at the picture on page 37, and you'll see a wall just behind the trestle bent, that contained the salt.
So, the main road that went under the bridge was not blocked.
I see we now feel "safe" in speculating about this year's April Fool's Joke. I think we're all agreed that if there is one, it is far more subtle than in the past. The traditional "elbow in the ribcage" at the end is missing. We miss that elbow.
Getting the numbers 2 and 6 transposed on page 14 seems way too bland to be it. The white rather than blue for "Model Railroader" on the cover? Different but hardly a joke. All the product reviews and new product write ups seem legit, including the bags of scrap loads. Tony Koester's article on space saving industries does reprint a Gerry Leone picture that has been reprinted many times, including in a Kalmbach book or two: the Hunt Paint factory, with the slogan, "If you need good paint ... go Hunt." That is a joke that has been told enough times not to qualify I think (and is a mere variant on the old Miracle Chair Company factory and its slogan, "If It's a Good Chair, It's a Miracle."
I don't think they'd mess with an advertiser, even if they themselves are the advertiser.
That leaves two possibilities, in my opinion, one of which is that there IS no joke and we've been straining our eyesight trying to find it. The joke that isn't there, like Sherlock Holmes's the dog that didn't bark, can be pretty effective.
The other possibility, and oh my this might offend Steve Otte if it isn't a joke, is the Ask MR question from Dave Burket of Talmadge OH. He has an Erie covered hopper No. 4065 with 8 square hatchcovers and sawtooth-angled hopper gates. The key phrase there is "sawtooth-angled" gates - meaning, like a regular coal hopper has, not like a covered hopper has. The other key is Erie 4065.
In other words, he has the (in)famous Varney/Life-Like "covered hopper" (Life-Like called it a cement hopper) where Gordon Varney, having a normal two bay coal hopper in his line of plastic cars, simply plopped a plastic 8 hatch casting on top of it so he could easily and cheaply have a covered hopper in his line.
The reason this is one of the most famous of all trainset quality car models is that people have been debating for decades over what Varney's prototype could possibly have been - there are only one or two possible candidates -- and many maintain that it is just a total fabrication. No such thing existed, as Varney created it that is. I think there has been one thread and perhaps more on this Forum just about that model.
But Steve Otte says "what you have is a model of a very common type of freight car." A very common model, yes, but not prototype. So is that the joke? There is no April 1 punch line or give away. In fact the questioner wondered how coal hopper gates could contain the sort of material that a covered hopper would carry, and the answer takes pains to assure him that the gates are designed to carry finely grained ladings.
So far that is the closest I come to an April Fool's joke, but it is only a joke to freight car historians who also have an interest in the foibles of the model railroad industry in the early era of plastic models. So all 12 of them are laughing at the joke.
By the way the 1937 Car Builder's Cyclopedia does show an Erie cement hopper similar in outline to the Varney/Life-Like model, but with genuine covered hopper type gates at the bottom. Numbered 20000. But the hatch casting Varney made is very much like a D&H covered cement hopper also shown in that Cyc - but it too has regular covered hopper type gates. But that lonely D&H prototype has created a sort of strange mini-demand for the Varney casting, which is easily popped off the hopper car body.
Only the National Plate Glass Company's two bay covered hopper in the '37 Cyc has the saw toothed coal hopper type gates at the bottom, and that is the one car that people think the Varney/Life-Like model even vaguely resembles; the body is way different but again Varney was re-using his coal hopper casting. A Seaboard 4 bay covered hopper for phosphate has saw toothed hoppers but they also have gate latches which are not like a coal hopper.
I am aware that covers were fabricated for coal hoppers during WWII grain rushes due to a lack of available boxcars.
On the good news front the slogan Model Railroading is Fun is back on the cover. It may not be funny, but it's fun.
Or maybe there is a joke after all. The astounding photo by Lance Mindheim pp 64-65. The caption says HO scale! Hahahaha no way.
Might there be a genuine April Fool's Day joke actually on April 1 on these Forums or on this website? Keep watching the skies ....
Dave Nelson
drgwcs mbinsewi drgwcs I think I know what it is- lets just say something that has been promised (in a couple of different forms) going on over 10 years (if not more) A new forum program? I didn't see anything about the promised new forum up date... Mike. Nope not a new forum program. I will believe it the "Day" it happens that is another hint.
Ok should I spell it out or give more clues......? It is someting to Howell about but I will believe it the Day that is done.
I've skimmed several times and I don't see any references to Howell Day or Red Ball (both of which are very real)