From the Dome Car: Train Nine, Track Five (January-February, 2000)













Who remembers the Y2K panic? That’s what happened in late 1999 as we looked ahead to the dawn of a new millennium. The fear was that computer clocks, which used a two-digit system (99) wouldn’t be able to handle it when we hit 2000—that they might think it was 1900 and everything would crash. It didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t worried! Morgan mentions this at the start of this Dome Car, noting we all made it. He goes on to mention a frustration over that year’s President’s Choice train set (not available in western Canada), with a nod to how some hobby shop owners were upset about the Great Canadian Superstore infringing on their business. And a CPR C-Liner was available in plastic for the first time! 

It looks like we all made it; welcome to the first issue of the year 2000! It promises to be the start of a great century. 

Mind you, it's not all good news. We need to adjust some prices due to increased publishing costs. That's not really new, though; everything is going up. Our adjustments won't take effect until May 1st, so you still have time to subscribe or renew at our old rates. It won't be a huge increase, but certainly enough to cover our increased costs. 

With that said, I want to go back a few months to something that we missed here in western Canada. And I don't mean snow; we've all had enough of that this year! It's been our tradition over the last few Christmas' to announce the release of a very special train set that becomes available at, of all places, a grocery store chain. 

Yes, I know, hobby shops may not have been too keen on this idea, but this great starter set gets youngsters interested and curious about our hobby.

My friend, Boris Polakow, Vice President of Loblaws Private Label, releases his company 's President's Choice Limited Edition Train Set each year. This year was no exception. The 1999 version was a CPR Pacific with a string of tank cars and a caboose, enough track to make a nice oval and a power transformer, all made by a very reputable model train manufacturer. But we didn't see them out here in western Canada; they were only available at their stores in southern Ontario and some points east. 

Well, I'm crying 'foul!' A telephone call to Boris a few weeks before Christmas revealed what was going on. Seems that stores in western Canada were not interested in carrying this item at the store level this year. And that's a shame. 

Personally, I have all six previously-released train sets. But this year, I'm either going to have to order one over the Internet or get somebody in southern Ontario to get me one and pick it up the next time I'm down that way. That's a far cry from being able to stop by my local Real Canadian Superstore and pick one up myself. Let's hope that next year's set will be available to all Canadians, and not just those east of Sudbury! 

If you live in western Canada (or elsewhere) and would like to order this year's set, visit www.pcbaskets.com/ index.htm/ and go to Basket Selection, then Cool For Kids. The trainset is $99.99 plus taxes and handling. 

Speaking of new models that are out in the marketplace, we tip our hats to David Altbalm at Canadian Hobbycraft (Life-Like Canada) for his efforts in producing the new HO scale Proto 1000 C-liner model. This beautiful, finely crafted locomotive should be in hobby stores by the time this issue goes to pre ss. It's available decorated for Canadian Pacific (block lettering; script lettering to follow) with the Canadian National version in the works. At a price of around $100.00, it represents a real bargain for such a fine running and good-looking plastic model. We are very pleased to present a product review of it in this issue on page 21. 

Over the last number of months, we've had some inquiries about articles on Digital Command Control (DCC). Yes, this subject has been covered extensively in other magazines. But we have accumulated some very good material on this subject and will present it to our readers, beginning in the next issue.

One interesting aspect of DCC is that it's an international subject; what's good in one country is relevant in another. With that in mind, I came across a very good article on DCC, written by a modeller/user in New Zealand, of all places. We are going to begin our DCC discussion with a reprint of that article. I hope you find this series interesting; any feedback will be welcome. 

Ok, so while you 're reading this, we're busy getting the next issue ready. I can' t feel spring in the air yet, but I know it's coming. We'll see you in the next issue. 




 

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