Tuesday, January 7, 2020

AHM's Water Tower

Kit box image sourced from ebay and right image sourced from MR Oct '65
Vince and I - well, mainly Vince :-) - have been scouring the internet trying to figure out all the box variants of AHM's initial release of their E. L. Moore kits. Along the way he came across AHM's classic Water Tower kit, whose little label on the box top says,

 Reproduced by permission from plans as shown in Model Railroader Magazine.

 I wondered which plans, and who drew them. After scanning the MR archive I'm thinking the kit is based on James E. Findley's Branchline Water Tank article that appeared in MR's October 1965 issue. Mr. Findley's model looks tantalizingly close to the kit. That picture on the right is snipped from the article's lead image, and you can see it looks like AHM's artist used it to create the box art painting. Actually, if you take a look at the article you'll see that the complete lead image looks like it was used as the basis of the painting, water tower, locomotive, track and all. I suspect the Findley / AHM Water Tower connection has been known for awhile, but it came as news to me.
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2 comments:

  1. WestonJanuary 7, 2020 at 3:14 PM

    Just thinking out loud here, but doesn't this remind you of Fine Scale Miniatures Branchline Water Tower kit

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    1. J D LoweJanuary 7, 2020 at 3:27 PM

      Now that you mention it, yes it does. I need to go and take another look at that FSM kit.

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