From the Dome Car: Train 4 Track 4 (August-September 1994)

 

How many of us have built an unassembled InterMountain cylindrical grain car? I tried, but gave up. (My friend Larry Leavens here in Winnipeg has built dozens of them; he found it very relaxing on work-related trips.) I mention this because in this issue Morgan highlights a great development in the hobby: Assembled InterMountain grain cars in Canadian prototype schemes. I was certainly pleased to see them, and I'm sure many others were, too. (I went on to own about 30 of them.) 

Morgan also takes time to explain why he publishes multi-part building articles. There just wasn’t enough room to publish a complete article about a scratchbuilding project—it would take up the whole magazine and be off-putting to those who weren’t interested in it. Today, it might be rare that anyone does scratchbuilding anymore, what with all the great ready-to-run or use models and structures on the market. But back then, it was the only way to get many Canadian prototypes for your layout. 

And I had a second photo published in CRM! 

On a recent visit to a local hobby shop here in town, I was shown one of the latest HO scale offerings from the InterMountain Railway Company, all done-up in a nice attractive box and very recognizable. I was so impressed with what I saw that I wanted to make special mention of it to all who read CRM. 

What I was looking at was the new assembled version of InterMountain's Canada Government 4-bay cylindrical grain hopper in it's very familiar red with yellow wheat sheaves paint scheme. What a beauty! Most of us have seen and bought the unassembled version which sells for between $15-$20 at the hobby shop and have spent the hours necessary to assemble this very fine and highly detailed model—me included. 

So when I saw it factory-put together and complete with proper weight and Kadee couplers—all for around $30—I was highly impressed. InterMountain has taken one of Canada's most famous and recognizable pieces of modern-era rolling stock and done one fine job at reproducing it to a scale HO version. And to think it's now available ready-to-run! A terrific job, Frank. 

In this issue, and for the next two, we are presenting a three-part, detailed article that was put together by Mike Barone on building a locomotive. In the past, when we ran multi-part articles in the magazine, we received some mail from readers who don't like this style of presentation. In order to produce an article with this depth of detail and length, it's necessary to split it up into parts due to the fact that we have a limited number of pages that we are able to produce with each issue. If variety is the spice of life, then we obviously can't fill up one issue with one or two articles! At least this way we are able to present the usual assortment of articles and subjects that interest each of our readers and still present a high-quality, long piece such as Mike's. 

I know that readers model many of the items that we present in the magazine, and are forced to wait for the next issue to complete some of the steps. Unfortunately it can't be helped. So please bear with us and enjoy. And, while I'm on the subject of arti[1]cles, we would like to do more pieces on constructing buildings and trackside structures which of course when built, add realism to any modelling scene. I know there's lots of modelling activity going on by individual modellers and we would love to hear from you about what you are doing. 

Putting together an article is really an easy affair as there are several ways of presenting your work. If you're not sure about such a project, give us a call or drop us a line so we can help or offer our suggestions. And please supply us with a telephone number, should you write. It's been said several times before: we depend on your input to produce the articles for this all-Canadian publication. Besides, it's great fun seeing and showing others what you are doing in the hobby. 

Well, this about wraps up another addition of the Dome Car. As this issue is being printed and bound, Craig and I will be Portland-bound on Amtrak for a week of activities at the NMRA National Convention. It'll be the first one for me and we are looking forward to meeting all those able to attend with us. See you in the next issue, eh.



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