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 September 2005 UMTRR and all updates to tables reflecting September 2005 releases and discontinued items are now on line. Also available is the "2005 Month by Month" page 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.). 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. The most popular one is "Door Thing," an easy project to change the six foot door on MTL boxcars to an eight foot one, for more variety, and frequently for more prototypical correctness. The September 2005 full-length subscriber edition of the UMTRR was sent to all UMTRR e-mail subscribers on September 2. 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 a few days of the Micro-Trains monthly announcements. (However, I expect the October issue to be a bit late.) 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 Cheers, [ September 26, 2005, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: umtrr-author ]
