April Fool article I sent to MR magazine

A few years back I sent this to MR for the April issue but they passed on it:

Three suburban neighbors in Minneapolis,
Minnesota have combined their HO layouts in a
unique way, forming an expansive railroad empire
that has many NMRA members voicing the familiar
adage “Now why didn’t we think of that?”

George Sellers, John Aleck and Dave Fray have more than adjoining houses in common. All three are avid model railroaders. However, it took years for George to convince John to re-enter the hobby. Constant invites to help run
his basement layout didn’t quite do the trick, but John’s retirement finally spurred his decision to take the plunge. Now two basements were off limits to the family cats, with John mimicking, and sometimes seriously improving upon,
George’s around-the-walls achievements in HO.

That left good ol’ Dave, who hadn’t run a train
since the old American Flyer set got packed away
in his parents’ attic. When his neighbors’
enthusiasm became overwhelming, Dave broke down, inspecting both layouts in a single evening.
A computer programmer, he was instantly hooked
like a spring trout on a new fly after a hands-on
session with George’s DCC system.

They devoted one night a week to traintasking,
alternating from basement to basement. When John
suggested expanding operations to Tuesdays and
Thursdays, George considered but Dave, still a
breadwinner with two little girls, hemmed and
hawed. No one remembers who came up with the
“idea”, but its arrival over coffee after a train
session on a subzero winter’s night knocked them out
of their chairs.

It was a simple inspiration, but one requiring a
bit of physical labor in the form of pickaxing
rock-hard ground and hammer-drilling six inch
diameter holes through four basement walls. Why
four? If the reader can guess th

Geee, that doesn’t surprise me considering the general lack of a sense of humor shown most of the time…or maybe they were just “mifted” that they didn’t think of it.

Mark

NMRC

Very clever even though we could see the light approaching a mile away. Thanks for sharing.

[(-D]

Not bad, Mister Mikado.

Here was my failed contribution:

After recently quitting my job in anger because I couldn’t stand my stupid boss any longer, I couldn’t make my mortgage payments on my 6-bedroom, 7-bath mansion, so the bank foreclosed on me and now I live in a studio apartment with one bath.

No matter, I rarely bathe anyhow, so I turned the bathroom into my new model railroad area. I converted the sink and countertop into a work area, and the bathtub proved an ideal site for my latest layout. I laid the track on the bottom of the tub, leaving room in the center for my guests to sit while bathing. That can actually work to your advantage because the rounded edges of the tub act to create super-elevated curves.

A couple of words of caution may be in order. Test your handiwork before finalizing anything. When I first filled the tub with water after setting up the initial track plan, all of the track floated to the top. I had forgotten to secure it to the bottom of the tub. I readily solved the problem with HO scale track nails. However, after a frantic call from the neighbor below me, I drained the tub, sealed the holes and used waterproof caulk to secure the track.

Wiring is a bit more of a problem because it is an excellent conductor of electricity. I did not know that until I let my pet ferret, Espy, jump into the layout while running trains. My LHS guy suggested Enviro-Tex as an alternative, to simulate real water. It is non-conductive, so that problem was solved. But, Enviro-Tex is a two-part resin material that dries to a glossy surface, and I have not solved that problem yet, much to my f

Just got the April MR, the AF article is there; pretty obvious that its not on the level
[:)] [:)] [:-,] [st] [st] [st] [st] [st] [st]

Actually, they didn’t pass on it. This senario (with a few modifications) was indeed employed for one of the MR April Fools pieces a few years back.

CNJ831

CNJ831, do you recall what issue you saw that? I’d like to read it. I submitted my idea to MR February 2004.

MM, I don’t recall the exact year the piece in question was published, but I’d be willing to bet that it was probably within plus, or minus, two years of 2004.

CNJ831

2010 was Trees as Smooth as Silk

2009 was So Many Choices (Trains of Thought)

2008 was Be on the Lookout for RRi

2007 was Track Plans for Life (layout tatoos on you arm)

2006 was Firm Announces Universal Command Control System

2005 was A Technological Revolution (trains ran upside down from ceiling layout)

2004 was a Product Review, a very large scale boxcar

2003 was Model Railroad Going Underground This last article talked about using plastic tubing to tunnel out from the basement walls.

When John sold his house, were the new owners required to grant easement rights to george and dave?

There’s been at least one ‘real’ article about a guy who used PVC pipe to extend a wye tail track through his basement wall and out under the yard. It didn’t run to the neighbor’s house, but a similar sort of thing.

–Randy

maxman, thanks for taking the time to research this.

MM

You’re welcome. Just to be clear, this might not be the article that incorporated the same idea as your’s. The only reference to going outside the box, ummm, I mean basement, was the statement “As for space, your layout is no longer bound by basement walls, only local plumbing codes.” What the article was really about was modeling subways, or “tube modeling”.

It discussed cleaning up derailments with high powered shop vacs, and cleaning the rails and tube using hamsters. It also stated that O scale “tubers” preferred chinchillas because “the animals softer fur buffs the rails to a high sheen”. I assume that the reference to sheen had nothing to do with a high Charlie Sheen, who was found in the buff.

Pretty sure that idea was in one of MR’s little cartoons about 20 years ago…