April Fools article -- spoiler alert

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I got my MR yesterday and remembered that is was the April Fool issue (which is odd considering it’s only February on my calendar). Personally, I’d rather the space be used for real articles and not silly jokes, but a lot of people seem to enjoy it, so whatever.

Anyway, I’m going through the magazine and at first I thought the gluing cotton to your backdrop was the April Fool’s joke (no offense to anyone that does this – the picture probably doesn’t do the technique justice). Then there was a giant article on picking chairs to operate while sitting down – so I’m thinking, wow, they spent a lot of editorial space on the fool’s article this year. I didn’t read it (because I thought it was a joke), but move on to see if there was anything else of interest.

I get to Koester’s column and start reading about him thinking about moving to another scale and a different railroad. I shrug and start to move on – I know there are some people that follow his every move and hang on every word, but I’m not one of them. But as I’m scanning the last few paragraphs, I see the URL for his site and realize that the “joke” was his column. I guess I was supposed to be flabbergasted that he was thinking about tearing apart his layout (again). My reaction was “more power to him”.

I’m not sure what is says about MR’s content these days, but I thought two actual articles were the April Fool’s joke and the actual joke got no reaction from me whatsoever. And I find that kind of funny…

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I agree. I always kind of shrug off the April “joke” as a throw-away piece. Sometimes sort of amusing or “cute,” sometimes not. But the “operating sitting down” story did bring me up short, and I thought that was the joke. “Surely they wouldn’t waste editorial real estate on tips for parking your derriere in an office chair …”

Don’t get me wrong, I really like MR. But sometimes I miss the “old” issues from the 1980s that seemed chock full of useful material.

This issue’s Soeborg article about improving a chain-link fence was pretty decent.

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Humm, guess I’ll go ahead and post. The backdrop actually got my interest (page 31). I was going to post a thread and see if anyone had any experience with it as I’m finished with painting my sky. This looked interesting to me as something new and a bit different. But hey, I’m new and never set up a train room before…

As to the article, ‘Operating Sitting Down’, page 76, using chairs is what I my planning as well. I found many good ideas that I’m going to be incorporating - but hey, I’m new and have not been in the hobby for decades. I just thought it would be a cool idea to roll around with the trains. Or hang in out in the switching area.

The Freytag’s Foundry was, well, it actually got me to thinking about maybe doing a styrene project! That thing just looks bitchen!

I now HAVE to have shadow boxes, page 43. How could you not?!?! Simple and easy. Now the casting part, well, I would have never thought of this on my own. Let alone come up with a process. But yah, I’m new, so this is probably old news to all ya old timers.

As far as Mr. Koester’s layout article goes, well two layouts in almost 35 years (AM for 25 and NKP for almost 10) is not all that much in my mind. But then I don’t even have one… YET… Oh, yah, it was an April Fools Joke… cool, I got a laugh. Which sort of leads me to the thinking that some of you who “been” around never seem laugh much at all. You all ever have fun?? Ever try to do something new?? Maybe ya should just save your $5.00 go get a foot long and hide back down in the basment.

For me, this last issue was outstanding. As are most of the issues.

Ok, I’m done, but sheeesh, I actually wanted to ask about some of the ideas in the mag and now you all make me feel like I’m a ignorant nubee and it aint worth your time…

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Loco, I found the article on the sit down layout interesting as well. Seems some of Us aren’t as young as We once were .Comfort as usual needs to be included in the planning of Your empire & working a switching yard sitting down would be a lot easier on my knees.As far as the poly-fill the only drawback I see would be how to clean it, as My past layouts seemed to be dust magnets.Everyone has different ideas on what They like on THEIR RR ,so if it works for You…

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You mean Tony is not going to build an O scale three rail layout![:O]

Bummer! [:(]

-George

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Actually,I have operated sitting down so,that may backfire…Its not hard to do with remote switches and KD uncoupling magnets.

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I always enjoy the April Fool’s piece each year.

I haven’t read all of this issue, but scanning through it, it looks pretty good. I don’t have a double deck layout, but I do have 6’x7’ underneath layout for testing that I operate sitting down.

Enjoy

Paul

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Of all the MR “April Fool” articles, my favorite is STILL the very detailed article on how to build a subway system using PCV pipe from some years back. It was so convincing that I almost thought about it!

Tom [:P]

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Someone on an earlier posting initmated that the April Fools article was listed among the articles highlighted on the cover. My guess was the article on “waffle” benchwork. I had this immeadiate image of someone pouring batter into a very, very, large waffle iron! [;)]

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Well, I got my copy today and …

[(-D] laughed when I read about the backdrop clouds (not that there’s anything wrong with it–just struck me as funny);

[(-D] laughed out loud reading the article on operating while seated, thinking, two pages! (I’ve always run my n-scale layout seated, so I guess I just didn’t see the uniqueness of the idea.)

[%-)] and saw “So Many Choices” as plausible–unitl toward the end.

Actually, I got a kick out of last year’s April Fools article.

As for this:

I really had a good laugh!

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You stole the words out of my laptop!! I actually went around thinking about how one could go around getting the stuff needed for it—and then it hit me-----[:-,][(-D]

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Preach on, Loco! It seems like there’s a lot of folks on here that just aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. I thought the articles in this month’s magazines were different from any I’d seen before. So, therefore, they weren’t the same ole, same ole, that people complain about. The result: people complain!

Laugh or cry,

Keith

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Bfore I knew of this place (and that atticle) Dad and I had disscussed that very idea.

And anyone finding the chairs article funny hasn’t run a large layout with concrete floors. Believe me, chairs are welcome things there. Though I prefer a well balanced stool.

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Funny thing is, if you followed Tony’s adventures in the past as he kept talking about the NKP while running his AM until – he when ahead and made the switch to NKP. While he’s been following the same trend lately talking about large scale and branchline terminals (Peterboro anyone?), so I’m expecting any month now for him to do exactly that. Only part that I didn’t get was why three rail. The real April Fools joke will be when he comes back and actually does it.

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Since I generally don’t read Trains of Thought (I get enough meta from forums like these), I would not have caught the joke (the picture…an O-scale caboose in front of some HO locomotives at a turntable…OK, maybe a leftover Rail Model Journal article or something). I too thought the poly-cloud background was the joke - it looks a bit like a little kids room.

Anyway, while the Subway modeling joke was cool (for some reason I seem to recall a picture of a subway entrance on a street, or possibly the Underground, with that article), I liked the rail-trail better (was that No-Trak?) - actually, isn’t modeling a portion of abandoned ROW on one’s layout de rigueur nowadays, so perhaps that was prophetic in a way.

Questions on the MR April fools joke:
Were the EMD SD30 drawings an April Fool’s joke.
Was a story about dressing up insects as engineers and firemen an April Fool’s joke.
Was there a product review of a prototype freight car as an April Fool’s joke.
And finally, is there a list of past MR April Fool’s jokes on the web?

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I don’t always remember that the April issue is the April Fools issue and, in fact, I had not remembered it this year but MR would really have to go some to beat the April Fool’s jib from the 1950s detailing how to eliminate floor support columns by pressurizing one’s basement. I don’t know how many times I have reread that article but it has to be the funniest one ever done.

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The SD30’s a Joke??![:O] Oh no.

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I had skimmed the issue not realizing it was the April version. I saw the clouds and thought about all those horrible looking dioramas from elementary school and jr high were we used pulled-out cotton for clouds. The operation sitting down has been kicked around for years and years - the issue is usually running over other people’s toes, junk on the floor, and a whole list of annoying things one would never think of until they actually do it. One definitely does not want chairs with “arms” on them. I thought the luan plywood light weight framework looked interesting and had mentally flagged it to go back and read for real.

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There was a BRIEF glimmer of HOPE that Tony, Really had seen the Light, and that Tony was joining the Growing ranks of 3-Railers. While Tony is aging, and the larger scales are easier to see, handle and model, as our eyesight and dexterity diminish with age, You don’t have to be old to appreciate the MASS of 3-Rail equippment, it can be Very addictive.

As with other scales, such as HO and N, there is a WIDE range of Quality and Detail Levels available in O, and I have no doubt that a modeler of Tony’s Skill Level could become very involved in 3-Rail. There are Locomotives (and rolling stock) available that Rival any HO Brass for detail.

I am a muti-scale modeler, and if someone can ignore that on many/most HO layouts, the fact that a 15-20 car train has it’s Locomotives(s) leaving one town, BEFORE it’s Caboose (or EOTD/FRED) has entered the last town the Locomotives passed through, then that same modeler shouldn’t have much trouble, “Not Noticing” that third rail either. I am a member of a large club here in Portland, OR, (Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club, with a 60x70 Layout) many modelers are surprised and comment that most of our trains are only 15 cars, and rarely more than 20 cars long. When we do run near prototypical length trains 80-100 cars( still on the short side for our modeled region) it totally destroys the illusion, although the general public does enjoy seeing the occasional extra long train, with the train wrapped clear around a large portion of the visible layout, there is no avoiding the fact that a train that is maybe (but probably not though) a scale mile long is stretching through at least 2-3 towns/cities at the same time.

Anyone who thinks that a 3-rail layout can’t be built to the same standards as an HO layout, has never seen pictures of a High-Rail layout such as Tony Lash’s for example. there are many high quality layouts out there in 3-rail. Just as there

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As noted in my previous post, this is why this was not my favorite: Re: Preemptive Strike–April MR Ever since I pressurized my basement and took out all the support columns, I always like to get advanced notice on MR’s April fools articles so that I do not make the same mistake. It is hard to sell a house that has collapsed not to mention, the law suits that I am still paying off when I blew out my neighbors plumbing. Peter Smith, Memphis Peter Smith, Memphis

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Thanks for ruining it(haven’t read it yet)[sigh][:(].

tim