I’ve never heard of Mt. Albert Scale Lumber and being interested in making decent open lumber loads for flat cars, I googled them. I get nothing but errors no matter which link when trying to go there: “Database connection error (2): Could not connect to MySQL.” Shame.
I’ll add on in that I think the following have been awesome rolling stock products which are nice and fit my needs as a western 70’s and 80’s guy:
I thnk their site is down. Contact is Gerry Cornwell…number is 905 473 3161. They are located in Ontario, Canada. Their wood in my opinion is by far the best I have ever modeled with.
Their dealer base in rather light in the US, but hopefully this will change. One dealer I know is located in NJ and attends the Timonium MD shows…Harbor Belt Lines. I buy direct as I use their products professionally (www.zanestructures.com).
I thought the Walthers “Modulars” structure packages were a great idea. The marketplace evidently thought otherwise. At one time Model Die Casting had a similar but less ambitious idea and it too died on the vine. I think the Design Preservation Models modular system might still be around. There was still a fourth outfit that started up a modular structure system maybe 15 or 20 years ago but they did not last long.
I would say the entire introduction of styrene into the hobby - and I am old enough to recall when there were those who rejected every aspect of plastic in model railroading – was one of the great ideas. That and nickle silver for rail instead of brass, which I think the British had way before we did, are now so common. But they weren’t always there.
Some more items I should have mentioned as being way excellent…
.Ballast in O scale or gauge would be Brennan’s Ballast, and for smaller scales would be Arizona Rock and Mineral.
Then my personal favorite…Goo! Everything I have ever built be it structure or piece of rolling stock was built with Goo. It can be thinnned if neccessary and applied with a tooth pick of from the tube with practice. When dry, it is a solid bond, but there is a long period of time to make adjustments or realign if needed. Then even afterwords if needed, model can be disassembled with thinner appplied to joints. Walthers took it over from Hobsco decades back, and did not cheapen or ruin the product. It still seems the same as when I first used it in 1962.
Mt. Albert are the nicest people. I still remember many years ago when I was planning to manufacture cars, how they sent me free samples. Someone beat me to the punch with an almost identical offering so the project was abandoned but I still remember the generiosity of the people there!!!
Dave, yes its back up. Darn, another Canadian company. Shipping from the great white north can be uneconomical but I’ll check them out.
Goo yes. Thanks for reminding me. I’ve had some projects that are on hold because I need it. I’ve also used Zap A Gap Goo in place of Walthers Goo and liked it too but it’s hard to find lately.
Something that took manufacturers a long time to figure out.
Multiple road numbers.
Seriously, for decades Athearn blue-box cars and almost everything else was produced with the same number. Every once in a while something would slip through, as Athearn did sell a small number of Chessie SD40-2s numbered 7612 instead of 7614, but for a long time it was one and done.
Now, three numbers per loco run are common, and it’s quite easy to get 12-15 different numbers of lots of rolling stock.
Thats a good point when some wax nostalgic with their rose colored glasses at the (not so) “good ol days”. I’d take todays offerings over 30+ years ago any day! There are definitely some things I think were better back then, but model railroading isn’t one of them! This is the golden age of the hobby as far as I’m concerned.
Road numbers is something manufacurers finally woke up and smelled the coffee on. I never considered myself an elitist by any means, but I didn’t like to buy multiples of a freight car with the same road number - that actually kept me from buying more. When freight cars and engines began being offered with multiple road numbers I bought more of them where appropriate and I think many others did too.
I remember one of the first multiple road number items - I have some old kit MDC FMC Western Pacific double door box cars produced in mulitple road numbers. I think it was the 1st 2 digits was printed on all of them along with the rest of the artwork, and then the last 3 were done after in different numbers, they are of a slightly different shade and do not quite match up, but they are unique road numbers!
ExactRail’s GSC flat cars with the laser cut taskboard decks.
The decks are user installed, meaning they’re easy to weather before installation. The car at rear shows the color of the taskboard material before weathering.
And what’s a flat car without a load? Owl Mountain Models has a great plastic kit for a 50s or earlier lumber load http://owlmtmodels.com/ . I modified it into a configuration more suitable for the 1970s. I highly recommend these kits.
I think flex track and ready to install turnouts are a great addition to the hobby. Hand laying of track is too time consuming and is impractical if building a large layout.
