This evening I stopped by the post office to check the mail, I had the pleasant surprise of finding my December issue of MR had arrived, I looked at the magazine cover and had a feeling that this one would be a good one.
Well I finally got home and started thumbing through it, I first saw the compact park build, then U.K. modular layout, then the quonset hut scratchbuild, then the Utah Belt, then the steamer kitbash, then the scratchbuilt station, and lastly advanced consisting in DCC.
Issues like this need to happen more often.
My hat goes off to the MR Editorial Staff, you guys did well this month.
I always find it a bit sad when an article appears after the author’s and/or modeler’s death, in this case Tom Houle’s scratchbuilt station article. At least Tom lived long enough to see his prior article in print.
It is November 5th. Alas my mailbox is still empty. Except for the customary bills. My LHS has the current issue but not my mailbox. I guess my postal carrier must not be done with it yet. And my issue of Trains…
I did get my Comsumer reports today. I wonder if they have ever done a story about magazine subscriptions.
Mine arrived just today (Mon. 11/5) I wonder if all the political campaign stuff has the USPS bogged down?
Yes, I’ve been a M-R subscriber for about 45 years. Don’t plan to stop now. The staff does a great job of keeping the hobbyist informed and entertained.
I do have one slight comment about the steamer kitbash article: The statement about the ALPS printers. While they are OOP, there are a few commercial custom decal makers that still have them. I use one of them for the metallic silver decals that I use for my protolanced road. To the best of my knowledge, for short run decals, that is the ony way to get that particular color.
That article took me back to when I was a kid in the mid-late 70s and read a similar article on building a park to fill an oddly shaped space. I could not suss out from the glorious MR index which issue it was in, nor the article name, but the modeler built the park on an elevated spot, used OO scale fencing and (I think - although this might be a Mandela effect) also used an OO scale figure for a statue (I did something similar using an oversized Bachman Plasticville preacher figure painted dark bronze as a statue - looks reasonaby proportioned). Now, I am not sure of the ground cover the 1970s park used, but I think the use of static grass (admittedly used everwhere nowadays with hundreds of videos about it - hi Kathy, hi Luke) gives the park sort of a real overgrown aspect, where in that era ('50s I guess) the lawn areas would be kept more neat and trim - maybe that rose bush gardener should stop pruning and start mowing.
Oh No, Edited to Add!
So, I found the article - “Building Glanville Park” from the December 1977 issue. Interestingly enough there is discussion of the park itself as described on this AP&G page. This article though seems to feature a second generation version of the park (still using ground foam), as it mentions Woodland Scenics (founded in 1975 so it’s possible that some WS was used on the 1977 park, although article lead time could be a year or more. Heh - 28 products offered in 1976 WS catalog) and the fence being purchased from Hong Kong via eBay (founded 1995), but the gate was mentioned as being brought from the UK (OO scale) 30 years earlier. Probably not even the same author of the original 1977 article. Oh well.
Two big projects. A scratchbuilt station and kitbashing a steam locomotive? Nice combo! Wasn’t there also an indepth article about DCC consisting to?
Interesting layouts. Brian Moore’s modeling is something I had seen before on Facebook, but it was nice to read first hand what the history was behind his modular set up. The Utah Belt, (while my friends and I like to joke its sort of a celebrity with paparazzi in the model railroad world since it shows up on the front cover of MRR and its special issues so much, and Eric’s “retired” locomotives always fetch so much on eBay) is always a nice railroad to revisit due to that modern angle.
Nice editorials to. Interesting reading about that man at the end who is nearing 100 years old; and how his layout has a very “old school” feel to it.
Basically the content was a win-win on quality and variety this month. I feel sometimes that the magazines begin to look ‘samey’ month after month; especially if we get two, three or four months of some very similar looking layouts featured. This month has kind of broken the ‘Appalachian Coal Hauling Railroad’ trend I think we have been stuck in for a few months now. Brian Moore’s work especially is a nice break from the norm, and that steam locomotive kitbash article will have to be earmarked for future use someday.