Hi all-- The Unofficial Micro-Trains Release Report website has been updated. For those of you not familiar with it, the UMTRR is my independent review and commentary on the monthly releases of Micro-Trains Line, not affiliated with MTL, and includes information on the prototype history of the car, data from Official Railway Equipment Registers, photo references, and just about anything else I can get my hands on. There are also occassional "guest commentaries" from specific railroad and prototype experts, all in a convenient easy to use package. The archive version of the January 2006 UMTRR and all updates to tables reflecting January releases and discontinued items are now on line. Also available is the "2006 Month by Month" page which contains links to images of all of the regular run freight cars in N and Z (images through and kind permission of Micro-Trains Line, Inc.). For Z Scalers, there's now a beta version of the "All Available Releases Table" for the Z Scale releases that's been a popular part of the N Scale coverage for some time. In addition to the archives of past UMTRRs, the website contains release tables going back to 1996, a body style listing (with more information than the one on the MTL site), and "Micro-Stories" features spotlighting some releases and projects involving modifying MTL cars. New to this section this month is a look at MTL's new boxcar interior load and a listing with images of the entire States of the Union Special Edition Series (with N Scale Collector-only releases). The January 2006 full-length subscriber edition of the UMTRR was sent to all UMTRR e-mail subscribers on January 9, and resent to AOL subscribers on January 11 (AOL's overzealous filtering blocked the first send). The archive edition on the website is shorter, doesn't cover locomotive and most Special Edition releases, and does not include live links, and is posted two to three weeks after the subscriber edition is issued. Subscribers usually receive the full UMTRR within five to ten days of the Micro-Trains monthly announcements. Please visit the website for information on how to subscribe. The UMTRR continues to be free and worth at least that much... http://www.irwinsjournal.com/umtrr
