Nice to see the Reid brothers’ are still doing great work. However, were the pictures from a recent visit, or are these archive photos from an earlier time? If they are old photos how does the layout look today? and how are they doing? Anybody know? The article seemed vague…but it did bring back found memories of reading MR when I was a kid.
From another Forum, the Reid Brothers layout is still very much in existence. It appears any new photos may have been unpublished ones made from earlier visits. I hope MR isn’t too cheap to send a photog to visit & update old photos.
Scenery wise, perhaps not too much has changed. Newer power, such as LL FA’s may have replaced older models. A Big change would be to change it to DCC power. Not sure what signal & turnout system the Reid Brothers used, & how it could be converted to DCC. IIWDCA.
It would be nice if they had a better scan of the track plan, the one provided on the website is barely legible.
Chris
The pictures are old, from the MR library. Lots cheaper than shooting new ones.
Lots of good questions, J.Daddy. It’s too bad the MR article didn’t answer any of them.
They’re pulling out all the stops for this big anniversary year, eh?
In other words paying someone to physically snap photos is too expensive? Or is it too little time to make it happen before rolling the press? Maybe MR can use a light jet, something that can zip a shooter into general aviation fields faster than the lumbering security locked commercial.
Well I know things are tight, its just the article seemed to re-live the past without giving us an update, so I was lost wanting more info, especially since at one time they lead the way for a unique N scale eastern layout. It would be nice to know what they are up too…, a brief interview?, or maybe updated pictures (before and after)? Lesson’s learned?
So I guess I know what the future articles will entail…
Maybe a short paragraph at the end on it’s current status or what happened to it.
Enjoy
Paul
The Reid brothers, Rich Weyand, and Bill Pistello developed the Cooler Crawler transistorized walk-around throttle system marketed by Rich Weyand’s TracTronics Corporation. The Cooler Crawler system was featured in the February 1995 issue of Mainline Modeler magazine, and is the system we installed on our HO scale club layout, which was under construction at that time. Even though we have converted to DCC, our layout can still be operated using the Cooler Crawler system for those members who do not have decoder-equipped locomotives.
The Cooler Crawler walk-around throttle system and other layout electronics items are still available from Mr. Weyand at http://www.tractronics.com