Doesn’t MR plant an April fool’s joke in the April issue every year? I know they did a review of an actual boxcar - I know it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek but was that the joke? I was looking for something more subtle.
I thought the box car review was funny ! [(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]
My all time favourite was one from either the late 60s or early 70s involving the installation of an airlock and the pressurization of the basement to enable the removal of all of the support columns for the first floor. This greatly freed up the track planning process . . .
David
David,
That was too funny.
A couple of years ago there was a good one on No-Track layout. The module actually looked convincingly good. All track had been abandoned & converted into a bike trail, with Starbucks coffee, etc, sadly, all too familiar in the real life railroads.
It inspired me to model a portion of my layout with an abandoned track.
But the airlock one must have been hilarious.
The sad part is that several people actually tried this and expired as the result of their homes caving in on them.
Me too, but apparently they put it in MRP this year, instead.
Can you guess which article.[}:)]
Aw, you mean I gotta go buy that too?? [;)]
Gee and I ordered two of those large scale boxcars! Uh-oh. They cashed my check, too …
Dave Nelson
So that’s why you thought model railroading is getting too expensive. 
—jps
P.S. I wonder what shipping cost?
A lot of readers fell for last year’s subway April Fools joke where you had nothing but a manhole cover with sound effects under it and dirt blowing out as the trains passed. Several wrote letters asking when and where those models would be available.
I’m afraid we sometimes take things too seriously.
I thought the article on the boxcar was great. After all, I never knew how much they cost. As for shipping, why not “rent out” the boxcars to haul freight to a terminal near you, then you won’t have to pay quite as much to have them delivered to your front door. Too bad REA no longer exists…
I never got mine yet, and I live in massachusetts
I enjoyed the box car article as well but it was too obvious. I was hoping for something more subtle and well hidden.
Many years back MR had an article on building a live-steam engine in (I think) N scale. I remember reading it in open-eyed amazement, until someone pointed out it was the April issue.
More recently, I think I saw an advert for an HO scale live steamer - but that might have been in the April MR, too.
Ron
Well, Hornby actually DOES sell an OO scale live steamer–so it might not be a prank!!
I LOVED the large scale boxcar review, I ordered one , also sold kidney to pay for shipping!!! How am I going to fit it in my display case??? HAHAHA LOL April Fools!!
I had to do a double take when I started reading the article. [:O] I had read the 1 : 1 scale but just brushed it off as some large scale thing. After all, I was half asleep at the time. [zzz] About a paragraph into it I was wide awake and laughing out loud. It was a great joke with good information to boot. [(-D][(-D]
My favourite was the one 10 or 12 years ago about the shortline that tried using full-size magnetic couplers![:D]
I still consider the building of a lunar railway layout article (back in the 1970’s?) the best MR has ever done. It was so convincingly presented that several readers, as I recall, wrote in about having acually built examples!
CNJ831