Come on Dana, give it up.
I haven't torn through an issue like this since I was 12 and model railroading was new to me.
Phil, CEO, Eastern Sierra Pacific Railroad. We know where you are going, before you do!
mbinsewiI don't read the mag. word for word, unless it's something I'm interested in. Most articles, I sorta scim through, and decide if I want to read it word for word.
I've read this month's issue more than I've read the past six months combined.
York1 John
chutton01I think this is a more common technique than you think (of course, the metal 'scrap' load is supposed to be securely glued/cemented down to prevent just such an issue) - heck, even Pelle Soeborg in one of his detailing books describes how he cut up metal pot scrubbing pads to produce metal 'scrap' loads.
Yea, I suppose some do it, as long as it's secured. I don't follow Pelle, or have any of his books.
MAYBE on April 1st, the "new and improved" forum will be ready to roll out! Maybe? Not that it's an April Fools joke, unless........they anounce it, and then follow it with "April Fools!!!
I guess we are all ready for the disclosure. I hope it's not some deep hidden thing in any of the topics mentioned......I don't read the mag. word for word, unless it's something I'm interested in. Most articles, I sorta scim through, and decide if I want to read it word for word.
Waiting!!!
Mike.
My You Tube
mbinsewiI thought using actual metal shavings for gons of scrap seemed a bit "out there", as we know what will happen if any of it spills
The one I thought was maybe not real until I checked the layout was the instant layout one, not KISS Method, I've known of them for years. Turns out those layout in a box kits are real,a nd the company isn't far from me.
Building a museum-like structure and setting it up isn't going to happen for a mere $1 million no matter how cheap the land is. If they were going to use existing available space in an already existing building - then no way should it take $1 million to curate some exhibits and get them set up. But if the location is not currently open to the public, getting it up to fire codes and ADA codes for true public access won't be cheap.
Bruce Chubb seems to be going a different direction - that project he's involved with to house not only the Sunset Valley but several other layouts in multiple scales seems WAY ambitious, but it would be great if they can pull it off.
--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'll give up on the KISS thing. Although the web site seems like a first attempt by a 6th grade E commerce course, it is lagit.
They don't mention the bags of metal there, but they are top billing on their FB page.
I thought using actual metal shavings for gons of scrap seemed a bit "out there", as we know what will happen if any of it spills.
Other forum references back to 2006 talk about their track planning aids.
I never did any "deep" reading into what some of you mention about Tony K or a museum?
Is Trains Of Thought really the April Fools joke? I have a hard time with that. Tony Koester has never been noted for a sense of humor that I can recall. I find it very plausible the CTC machine could be in California with a few pieces of MIDLAND ROAD equipment.
By the way, there is a STRATTON AND GILLETTE refrigerated boxcar already in the California State Railroad Museum.
The sentence about the articulated steamer would require too much real world knowledge to be an effectice (ha ha knee slapper) joke.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Did a little more research- Here is a wayback machine copy of the NMRA page on the museum June 3 2003- https://web.archive.org/web/20030603200727/http://www.nmra.org:80/howellday/ Has it really been seventeen years?
dknelson drgwcs 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. Oh! the much-promised, never delivered Howell Day Museum originally to be at NMRA headquarters in Tennessee and then moved to California but on-hold for a very long time, after seemingly endless announcements by the NMRA about how close it was to clinching the deal. Tony Koester's Trains of Thought talks about his CTC machine and some AM rolling stock being donations and says the Museum (he does not use the Howell Day name) "should be opening about the time you read this." Then later in his column Tony says C&O 2-6-6-2 No. 1309 "should now be back in service on the Western Maryland Scenic Railway" which if you read Trains magazine, or visit Trains's part of this website, you know if far from being the case unless someone comes up with lots of money. So the joke, if this is the joke, is how Tony Koester uses the word "now" and the phrase "about the time you read this." But that would make him among the critics of the NMRA and its long-delayed Howell Day Museum and those folks are, shall we say, not fans of Charlie Getz the ex President of the NMRA. And when I say "critics" I mean there has been some slanderous stuff said. I do not believe Tony is among that crowd. And I can't see Kalmbach or MR getting into that controversy either, not even for a joke. Dave Nelson
drgwcs 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.
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.
That was what I was suggesting is that the April's fool joke is that it will be open by the time we read this... (Thus the Howell Day Clue) I don't think it is as much as a criticism but timing. I really wish it to open although I suspect I would never get to see it (I'm on the other side of the country) There is absolutely no indication on either website. It seems like this has been so long coming- and I have always wondered why. Could not volunteers begin to set up the layouts? That is what happened with the UC&N and it was operational in relatively short order in the museum in Cheyenne WY. I also wonder on the cost too- The NMRA has on the website $1,00,000, (Yes that is how they put it) Is it 100K or 1M? Either way it seems as if it could be built gradually or at less cost. The layouts are already in existence.
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.
I can't find anything of the April fools anywhere...
If anyone is quite certain they know what it is or they have inside information, I woud greatly enjoy a PM.
Thanks!
I'm beginning to realize that Windows 10 and sound decoders have a lot in common. There are so many things you have to change in order to get them to work the way you want.
The only thing that makes it possibly a fake article is, why would a California museum want East Coast equipment? I've found enough pictures to see they do have HO scale models on display, but they are UP and SF locos and rolling stock. Kind of like how the Railroad Museum of PA doesn't have West Coast stuff.
But in the article, he says it's just a display in the mezzanine of the musuem (which does exist and is open) sponsored by the NMRA - so not a dedicated NMRA musuem of any sort.
drgwcsOk should I spell it out or give more clues......?
I am fine with you spelling it out.
I have read the issue twice and cannot find anything.
I am sad.
I've skimmed several times and I don't see any references to Howell Day or Red Ball (both of which are very real)
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.
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)
A new forum program? I didn't see anything about the promised new forum up date...
Nope not a new forum program. I will believe it the "Day" it happens that is another hint.
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
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.
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.
I was just kinda' making a TIC statement. I just couldn't resist.
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)
stokesdaMaybe there isn't one this year
I hope this is not the case. The annual April Fools Joke is an institution.
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
York1 I have been through the pages several times and I cannot find anything.
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 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)
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.
"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 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.
I know my reaction will be, "Oh, yeah! I knew that!" when someone here finally tells me.