Yesterday’s meeting of the Gateway Garden Railroad Club included the annual December visit to the shops and layout of Ken Patterson. Ken does a lot of ad work for Bachmann and he had the new rail truck in his shop running on a set of rollers. The model for the ad is suppose to be the green one and we saw great pictures of that. But the one running on the rollers was the yellow or BumbleBee one and it was going through its energies quite well. The headlights are a yellow greenish, the tailight is red and it does come with opening hood and doors. The fan blade and the drive shaft do turn as it runs. It came with a attaching plow and a driver, plus some other small parts. I didn’t remember to pay attention to the stake bed, but if it won’t lift out, it can easily be cut off. This is going to be a kitbasher’s dream. There is a box with the motor in the truck bed, but there will be no problem disguising it in cargo. Scale is supposedly 1:20.3, but it will go well with 1:22.5.

Smooth Sailing, Ric Golding Kaskaskia Valley Railway Carlyle, Illinois