Announcement of E. L. Moore's Three Store Fronts and a Shop kits

Over the last few days for some unknown reason I've been thinking about an old issue of Model Railroader from the 1970s with cabooses on the cover - I think of it as the psychedelic caboose issue :-)

And for some other unknown reason I recall exactly the details of where and when I bought it, what kind of a day it was, and reading it for the first time. Although, all I could recall about its content was the cover and an article called Wayside warehouse* because I eventually built that model. Last night I decided to dig up the issue and see what was inside.

As well as the warehouse construction article there is also quite a good article on how to build models with Strathmore by Jimmy Gavelock, which I guess makes sense as the warehouse in the construction article is made from that material.

The surprising find was a notice in the Trade Topics section for the old AHM kits of E. L. Moore's Three Store Fronts and a Shop project. Given this MR is the June 1974 issue, the kits were most likely released earlier in 1974. This then brackets the period when the Original 9 AHM E. L. Moore designed kits were released: the first was the Brewery in 1968, and last were the two Three Store Fronts and a Shop kits in 1974 (this of course all assumes the larger the AHM kit#, the later it was released).

The Trade Topics notice makes no mention that these kits are based on an E. L. Moore project, likely because that project appeared in RMC as did all the other Moore designed kits. The review also 'bland-ifies' these colourful kits. You can see for yourself some of their baroque glory in my one-and-only stab at an unboxing video I did many years ago:

*I still have that wayside warehouse model I built from the article somewhere around the house. I think I recall the box it's in, and given that it's raining like crazy today, I'll go on safari to find it :-)