Write us a letter at: letters@modelrailroadnews.com

More about type size I enjoy your publication, look forward to receiving it. Keep up the good work. I read it with a magnifying glass. It’s very hard to read. I totally agree with Terry Corbett [Letters, March 2003]. David Niemeyer Horicon, WI

Thanks David. It’s the age-old publishing dilemma of space vs type size. We would have to nearly double our page count (and advertisers) just to get our type size up to something on the order of 14 point, which you should be able to read without assistance. Until that unlikely day, allow us to express our appreciation for all of you who take the time to drag out the old magnifier. Keep it handy; it helps when working on trains, too. — Ed

Company Layouts and BL2 information revisited The Santa Fe Model Railroad at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago Illinois is no more. It has been replaced with an HO scale model railroad that represents downtown Chicago, 150 buildings are included, and the countryside to Seattle, Washington including buildings of downtown Seattle. Monon BL-2 #32 is at the Kentucky Railroad Museum in New Haven, Kentucky. Approximately five years ago #32 was restored to like-new. I helped on the body work. Thirty-two was at the EMD open house at La Grange, Illinois in 1989. Thanks again. Ray Stokes Valparaiso, IN

Thanks for the update, Ray. — Ed.

S scale appreciation Thanks for the great mag. I especially like the ‘S’ scale items. Thanks for featuring a great scale. Your reviews in all scales are refreshing in clarity and detail. The observations and suggestions for tuning up and detailing in any scale are useful. Identifying the scale above each item is very helpful. In this family we do HO/S/Sn3/1”/1.6”/ and 2.5” scales. Ken Reiter San Jose, CA

Scale Comments I enjoy your Larger View articles and have gathered much information from them in the issues I have. I have missed many years of information on model trains by not knowing of MRN. I guess it is better late than never. In the late 70s, I started with N scale and then went to HO. After a while I got G scale and, in an apartment in Seattle, I built an around-the-wall layout for the G scale in my living/dining room. I cut scale lumber from redwood boards from a fallen-down barn on my son-in-law’s place east of Mt. Vernon. With that material, I built a 6 foot long curved trestle and another 5 foot one to span doorways and windows. It was fun and a great pride for me. After several years I moved to Arizona and returned to HO. I am now a “Snow Bird” and spend from June to October in Washington state with my daughter, grandchildren, and sister. From October to June I live out the winter here in Belen, NM. Because of neurological problems, I can no longer handle HO couplers, and screws and springs, so I have returned to G scale. Big deal — some of the screws in ‘G’ are as small as HO — “Bummer!” My friend, who I am renting from here in Belen, NM, has given me permission to build a 12 x 32 foot kidney shape layout outside in the garden. This is the first outdoor layout I have ever built. I purchased the book — Garden Railroading, and find it most helpful in building. I will start running after I return in October of this year. I am building a plate girder bridge for this layout. I sure don’t want Seymore Rivets to see this layout, he would really tear into me! I am most interested in you Larger View articles but also the DCC, O, and S articles. I appreciate your information on the prototype as well as the models you all review. Just in passing, I like the format and size of MRN. It has a special purpose and content and I would not like to see it homogenized into something that looks just like all the others. Of course, I do not know about all the costs etc. to producing such a publication so I am not taking that into account for my general opinion above. Don Pippenger Belen, NM

Thanks for writing, Don. Seymore said to say hi and that he only tears into me. — John

Where’s Train Tech? Thank you for a great job making the MRN newspaper. Myself and my wife enjoy reading it every month, especially the new products reviews and other news. We especially like the Train Tech Forum column since it is adding the technology aspect to the newspaper. Unfortunately, we did not see the column for the past few months. This column brought to us the hi- tech side of the hobby and we would like to have it again. Other large magazines like the Model Railroader have technical articles but to be honest, we found that the Train Tech column was way better than most of the big magazines articles. Myself and my wife like this column very much and thought to ask you when it will “on-air” again? Tom and Lily Down Portland, OR

Thanks for the note, Tom and Lily. We agree that the column was an unusual attraction, but we are also in a rather difficult space crunch right now. I suppose it is a blessing that we always have more material than we can publish, but this is also requiring us to tighten up what we do. Columnist Danny Rittman is working on some new articles. We hope to see him again in Model Railroad News — Ed.

We welcome all comments and letters from our readers! e-mail us at: letters@modelrailroadnews.com or send us a letter to: LETTERS c/o Model Railroad News P.O. Box 1080 • Merlin, OR 97532-1080 Fax: 541-955-0346