Holy exploding molasses!

Image sourced from here.

While I was searching for Machine Shop box variations I came across this version of the Molasses Mine kit. The so-called Kaboom Powder Factory version by AHM doesn't look like it has had any modifications done to it other than a name change and re-boxing.

What made this box particularly interesting to me was this P.S. I found in a letter dated July 13, 1971 from E. L. Moore to Denis Dunning, the managing editor of Railroad Modeler magazine: 

Peter Van Dore of AHM sayn [sic] they're working on another model of mine -- they have three now listed -- and asked me to make one specifically for them. A dynamite plant with one side blown off.

That's the only reference E. L. Moore made to creating an exclusive model for AHM. And there are no other references to him making an AHM Dynamite Plant. But, maybe the idea of a kabooming dynamite plant stuck with Mr. van Dore, or someone else at AHM, and simply renaming the already weird Molasses Mine was the way to produce such a plant on the cheap and easy.

E. L. Moore didn't let the idea of a dynamite plant sink. His article, The Cannonball & Safety Powder Works, where he infamously blew up the finished model at the end of the story, was submitted to Model Railroader on 10 April 1974, and was published there in the April 1977 issue.

When was AHM's Kaboom Powder Factory first released? I have no idea, but I can see many happy hours of investigation ahead :-)