From the pages of Canadian Railway Modeller: Morgan Turney, in his own words

  In this Dome Car, Morgan provides information about a little-known feature of Canadian railroading: The tree planting car, which he visited that summer. And big news: CRM will soon be on the Web. In 1996, there were an estimated 257,000 websites in the world, so CRM was certainly on the leading edge in that area. Looking back on it from today, it’s cruelly ironic to read how excited Morgan was about that development; it was the Web that contributed greatly to the death of the magazine. Just like you don't need a tree planting car anymore, since everything is online.   Ah, the good old summer time! If you like to haunt the odd railway museum like I do, now's the best time of the year for it.   I heard from our magazine designer Debbie at DM Desktop that she and her family happened upon a 'tree planting car' while camping in the Sandilands area of eastern Manitoba. It sounded like a very interesting car, one of which I'd not heard of before.   So when Jim Mart...

  Along with publishing CRM, Morgan was active in the local Winnipeg Model Railway Club for many years, including helping organize and run train shows. That experience prompted him to find ways to promote other clubs across the country. He puts in a plug for advertisers, and adds a bit of prototype news—some years later, that would become a regular part of the magazine, with yours truly responsible for collecting and writing it.   One aspect of our great hobby that personally appeals to me is participating in our annual Winnipeg Model Railroad Club show here in Winnipeg. Sharing the work load, entering contests and generally helping the public understand what railway modelling is all about is very pleasing.   Naturally, putting on an annual show is not an easy task. Arrangements need to be made for space (assuming your club doesn't have a permanent residence) and members have to coordinate their efforts through an organizing committee to ensure a successful exhibi...

  Model railroad thieves? That’s what has Morgan’s attention in this Dome Car. Hard to believe it would happen, but it did. (And maybe still does.) And the fifth anniversary boxcar is announced, along with a CRM license plate. All ways for him to celebrate the magazine and promote the hobby.   One nice thing about this time of year is that soon the snow will be gone and spring will be here. When I look out my window, all I see are snow-covered streets, bundled-up people and plugged-in cars! Soon, though, the roads will be wet and slushy—if your windshield washer fluid isn't full, you're doomed!   Winter snow and cold does have its advantages though, especially if you're a railway modeller. Those cold and windy nights are spent working on models, building a layout or just enjoying the hobby. Hanging out at the local hobby shop can be fun, too. If you like to railfan, winter offers a different perspective on your subjects, along with the challenge of getting near the ...

  250 articles modelling articles, 175 Proto Photos, 150 Modellers' Photos and countless numbers of book reviews, video reviews, new product reports, letters and events—that’s what was published in the first five years, or 30 issues, of CRM. From concept to product, it was quite a journey for Morgan. One thing he lamented was the aging of the hobby, which was in the mid-50s in the mid-1990s. (I wonder what it is today?) And he expressed his disdain for the Internet, which was just in its infancy back then. (Remember dial-up?) To his dismay, the Internet would continue to be a challenge for Morgan—and ultimately put an end to his magazine dream, as it did for many other print publications.   The last issue of our 5th year has arrived! Train 5 Track 6 is our 30th issue.   Over the past five years we've published around 250 articles connected in some way to Canadian modelling, over 175 Proto Photos, 150 Modellers' Photos and countless numbers of book reviews, video revie...

  "Weekend Warriors”—there’s a term I haven’t heard for a long time! Weekend Warriors is what we used to call people who operated hobby shops out of their homes, selling new products at weekend train shows across the country. Hobby shops disliked them for cutting into their sales since they could sell items so much cheaper due to not paying rent, salaries and taxes. Morgan took the topic head on in this Dome Car, and in a special investigative report in the magazine written by yours truly. (I think this was my first byline in the magazine.)   The ongoing controversy between hobby shops and the so-called 'weekend warriors'—people working out of their homes who sell new model railroad products at weekend shows—was recently brought to our attention here at CRM. It's our policy at CRM not to mention swap meets in Subdivision Footnotes. The column is intended to provide free space to clubs which want to promote their shows.   But a hobby shop owner in southern Ontario i...

  Morgan takes readers to South Africa, courtesy of a model railroad magazine from that country. He mentions a section in that magazine about the prototype; it would be a few years before CRM would include Proto Report—with yours truly as the author and compiler. In the last issue Morgan enthused about this new thing called DCC; in this issue he notes how computers are enhancing model photography—and wonders if it should be seen as acceptable for model photography contests. We’ve come a long way since then!   Many readers will remember the advertisement for the Schreiber Heritage and Tourism Committee that appeared in Train 5 Track 2. The Canadian Pacific model of the ML W S-3 was won by Ken Haun of Kitimat, BC., who told us it's the first thing he's ever won in his life! Congratulations, Ken. I have no doubt you will be very pleased with your prize.   Organizers of the draw informed me that well over 1,000 tickets were sold and that over half of them came from the ad...

Today, DCC is the standard way people operate trains. In this Dome Car, we are taken back to when DCC was just entering the model railroad marketplace. (The NMRA had just standardized DCC two years earlier in 1993.) You can hear the fascination in Morgan's words as he uses it for the first time. As he put it: “It was like I was in total control of running the operations of the locomotives, just as one would be on the prototype.” All he needed was horn and bell sounds, and it would be perfect, he said—something that is, of course, standard these days. How do you think the advancements in digital command control (DCC) will affect future model railroaders and their layouts? I had a sneak preview of what to expect last week, when on my weekly visit to the local hobby shops in town, I had the opportunity to 'play with' the system introduced by Wangrow Electronics called the System One. The Wangrow company is one of four better-know companies producing DCC systems, the others...

  This Dome Car highlights one of Morgan’s interests—prairie skyscrapers, aka wood grain elevators. He made a commitment to photograph as many as he could before they were torn down. Sometimes he took pictures when they were being destroyed.   We are all feeling the pinch these days economically, what with tariffs and all, but the early 1990s were also a time when people were struggling with finances—as Morgan points out when he talks about the rising price for paper affecting everything from magazines to cereal to coffee.   And also just like now, he writes about the need to attract more young people to the hobby. In that respect, the 1995 Toronto train show was very encouraging!   It looks like Canadian railway geography is about to make a big change. I've just finished watching CBC's Venture, where the program discussed the effects on the grain industry once the Crow Rate is gone. I won't go into what the Crow Rate is, but once it disappears, grain farme...

  Five years! With this issue, Morgan marked the 5 th anniversary of CRM. Since it started, he said the magazine had published about 200 articles and countless photos, along with book reviews and other things. He was proud to have published the work of Canadian modellers and, best of all, to see an increase in the number of Canadian model railroad items—something easy to take for granted today. (As proof, Athearn announced it is bringing out a “what if” BC Rail SD90MAC-H PH I unit in BC Rail green lightning stripe livery. That would have been impossible 30 years ago.) Considering the challenges he faced getting this far, the anniversary was worth celebrating.     I remember it like it was yesterday. A day much like today; overcast and snowy, fairly crispy and cold. The 'Canadian' still ran on Canadian Pacific Railway trackage. Talk of the cabooseless train was on everybody's mind and Canadian National and BC Rail were about to step into 'the nineties' with the ...

In this Dome Car, Morgan takes us to Russia to learn about model railroading through the eyes of a Canadian modeller. That was just five years after the Berlin Wall fell, a time when we thought maybe we were on the verge of a new and peaceful and less polarized world. And he notes that the next issue will mark the beginning of the fifth year of CRM—a real milestone for him and for the magazine.   When it comes to modelling, railfanning and locomotive preservation, sometimes we don't realize how lucky we are here in North America, especially after reading a letter from a railfan who has recently returned from a visit to Russia.   Jim Little, a CP modeller in the southern Ontario area who has written articles for us in the past, dropped me a note about his experiences during a trip he made this past summer with his wife to the former Soviet Union. Jim reports that while on a visit to a museum of Russian steam locomotives in St. Petersburg, that sadly all the equipment sits o...