RDC-M, Part 1: Samurai Sectioning

Top: Athern's RDC box-stock body shell  | Bottom: After sectioning and gluing

RDC-M =

RDC-Mini ?

RDC-Micro ?

RDC-Munchkin ?

???

In the last instalment of the Desert Dodge series I hinted I needed to overcome my reluctance to use my saw to create a miniature RDC; an RDC-M of sorts. Spoiler Alert: Reluctance Overcome!

I had 2 RDC shells by Athern I bought back when I was working on my Le Grand Defi entry in 2024. These are the old RDC models they made of the RDC-2, the combination passenger and baggage vehicle. A complaint I'd hear about the Athern model was it was considerably shorter than the prototype and not too detailed. I have one that runs that is quite decent, but sure, a modern-day Rapido version is far more prototypical and sophisticated. 

I bought these shells because I had an idea for a radically shortened RDC, but my hesitancy about ruining a perfectly good shell got in my way of doing anything.

Shimomura Alec Hyper Cut 0.15 Pro-C saw

Before I got started though I thought I needed a much better razor saw than I used to section the Desert Dodge. I used an Excel saw blade in an X-Acto handle. It was new and sharp and worked fine, but I thought the blade would be too thick for sectioning an HO scale body with any kind of precision. After a bit of searching I found what I was looking for at a local hobby store that specializes in Gundam and related kits, not model railroad stuff, so this was new territory for me. I bought a Japanese Shimomura Alec Hyper Cut 0.15 Pro-C saw and it's fantastic. As we'll get to, I made some screwups while sawing, but they weren't the saw's fault, they had to do with me misplacing the cuts. 

Building Plastic Railroad Models has excellent material on sectioning and kitbashing.

Also before starting I read through a few of my old model building books looking for some words of wisdom about sectioning a shell. I found the most useful one to be Building Plastic Railroad Models by Robert Schleicher, published in 1979. If you can find a used copy I highly recommend it. It's still quite relevant on fundamental techniques even today, and it's presented in the high quality style that Kalmback Books was known for.

Cuts are marked with Tamyia tape. 
White gloves optional :-) The dry air this winter is playing havoc with my hands. I had some hand cream on them when I took the photo.

Well, a good saw and good advice aside, I still made a silly error right from the get go. I decided to make the end cuts through the corrugated roof as I thought I wanted fairly wide ends. Later, when I was cleaning up the cuts with sand paper I realized I'd never get the roof to look seamless over the corrugated section. 

An end section re-marked to cut off the corrugated stub.

So, I re-marked both the end sections and cut off the stub with the remaining corrugated roof. Under the tape is the smooth roof. I though cutting off that remnant would be tough, but the saw is so sharp and thin it cut through like butter; no problem at all. 

Elastic bands were used as clamps to hold the pieces together while gluing.

After cleaning up the cuts with some sanding sticks and blocks the three pieces were glued together with styrene cement.

Photographed right after the elastic bands were removed.

And there it is. It needs to be cleaned up a bit before priming, but it doesn't look too bad at this stage. There's still plenty of work left on this project, but at least the major psychological hurdle is behind me.

A tall tale about a small Flyer

If you had a chance to crack open the spring issue of Voie Libre - #121, for April / May / June 2025, that is - you no doubt came across an article called The Spumoni Flyer where the editor and I discuss the ins-and-outs of building a small self-propelled coach that's an homage to E. L. Moore. Here's a little extra for all you readers of 30Squares: a bit of fan-fiction in classic Moorian style to put you in a Moorian mood while you're building your own Moorian flyer:

Cousin Cal and the boys pulled my rickety Coach into the siding even later than usual last night. This time though Cal didn’t blame their extra lateness on hooch. It turns out the old 0-4-0 pulling it was on its last legs and stalled twice on the way back from the Red Eye Saloon. I was out by the track, waiting, dozing in my rocker under the moonlight when that clunker pulled in and woke me with a terrible racket. Cal jumped outta the loco’s cab and asked me, “Can you fix her just one more time? Please.” 

“I’ll do ya one better”, sez I. “I’ll build ya a brand new one. I gotta nice, new motor bogie all the way from France, and I’m just itchin’ to build somethin’ with it.”

“A new steamer?”, asks Cal.

“Nah, a new Flyer to match that them there Coach,” replies I pointing to the Coach the boys arrived in. 

Cal gave me one of his patented beady-eyed squints and asked, “What’s it gonna cost?”

“We’ll talk about that in the mornin’. Right now I’m getting to work.”

Later, much later, after you've pulled an all-nighter getting a start on the flyer:

It was a long, long night, but I got a good start on the chassis. When Cal wandered by I was dozing in my chair. 

“Hey, wake up! I’ve got ya lunch from Ma,” announced Cal and added, “Have you had breakfast?”

Cal handed me a big picnic basket whose delicious aroma could drive a man wild. I ripped into it like a starving wolf. “Thanks” was all I could mumble.

Now that I was distracted by coffee and savoury victuals Cal asked, “How much for the Flyer?”

In a moment of smoky bacon weakness I replied, “Consider it an early Christmas present”, and in a flash of coffee induced sense added, “but give me a couple of those Oom-pah records of yours I like.”

Later still, much, much later, once you've finished the flyer:

According to the dots and blots I stamped on the calendar it took me two weeks to build the Flyer. Some assemblies were tricky, but the French motor bogie worked great. I had just finished cleaning up the workshop and was leaning against the frame of its open door, staring at the Flyer over on the spur, when Cal walked up with a bag under his arm.

“Do ya got the keys for the Flyer?”, sez Cal.

“Do ya got my records?”, sez I.

Cal gave me the bag he was carrying and I gave him the Flyer’s keys. We exchanged thank-yous.

I opened the bag and there were the Oom-pah records. After glancing at the liner notes I looked up and saw Cal headed for the Flyer. I shouted after him, “Do you need the training wheels?”

My chat with François

If you've had a chance to crack open the latest issue of Voie Libre - #121, April / May / June 2025, that is - you may have come across an article called The Spumoni Flyer where the editor and I discuss the ins-and-outs of building a small self-propelled coach (in styrene!) that's an homage to E. L. Moore. As they used say on tv, "Don't delay, get yours today!" :-)

New beginnings: Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley in S-9

An S-scale, 9mm beginning for a trolley inspired by Thaddeus Lowe's. It's built on a Kato 11-108 drive unit.

The last two months I've been working on a diorama for entry in this Loco-Revue contest. It was submitted last week and graciously accepted, so now I'm back to normal operations :-)

The thing that surprised me about the diorama project was how fast I completed it and the enthusiasm I brought to the work. I started from zero on 26 February and finished on or around 19 April - and that included a 10 day excursion to Texas in the middle where no hobby work occurred. The project involved making 3 little dioramas, designing and scratchbuilding a building, scenicking, and modifying and detailing a locomotive, as well as shooting lots of photos, two videos, and packaging them for submission. I had a great time. The best in a long while. Most of my projects take ages and drag on. There's a message or two in there for me.

I think one of the messages is that I need to park most of my existing projects for a bit and focus on fun - well, let's say getting satisfaction from building, not 'fun' as the popular media defines it. I was doing many projects out of a feeling they needed to be done. Forget that. This summer could simply be a random walk looking for hobby fun, as well as enjoying any good weather that comes along of course.

I may have finally figured out how to build a little layout inspired by the Mt. Lowe railway. First though I need a model - in this case a casualized model - of Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley that he used to scoot around his railway. I've made a start and I'll continue until the fun runs out.

Bringing the Siku Bombardier tram to life in Casualized HO-9

I've had it in my mind for a long time to motorize Siku's Bombardier toy tram (SIKU 1895). In Toronto it seems to be marketed as a toy version of the TTC's iconic streetcar manufactured by Bombardier.

Siku Bombardier tram, SIKU 1895, straight out of the box

The box says it's HO scale, and I believe it, but it is a casualized representation of the vehicle. Ok, it is a children's toy so play value down on the carpet is more important than the fussy desires of an adult modeller. However, the shells are nicely detailed, and I thought they'd make for a rather decent casualized HO-9 vehicle for running around the Centennial Experimental Farm layout, or simply posing for scenic photos.

A TTC Bombardier streetcar as seen in Feb 2019

I started the motorization and casualization back in the fall of 2022. I thought it was going to be a rather easy conversion, but I was very wrong. There was a lot of trial and error before I even came close to getting it to run trouble free laps. At one point I was so frustrated I parked the project and only gave it another go just after last Christmas. Even though it now runs, and doesn't look too bad, I'm not completely satisfied with the approach I've taken. I'd say it's good enough for what I want, but it could be much better. What follows are some rather loose notes on how the build proceeded so I have a record in case I try this conversion again, or someone else is interested in learning from my mistakes.

The Siku toy taken apart

The toy is held together with 2 screws on the bottom of each chassis. Once removed the shells and baffle are easy to pry off the chassises. Now the fun begins.

Preparing the shells for re-spraying with white paint

I decided to work on some cosmetic changes first. The oversize Bombardier logo was the first thing to go. I rubbed it off with an abrasive track cleaning block and an assortment of fine sanding sticks. The damaged areas were then masked off and resprayed with white paint.

About 1/3 the way through construction

The above photo is a bit deceiving because a lot of work has been done at this point besides re-painting the shells. As I mentioned in the beginning, there was a lot of trial and error during construction and I didn't photograph many intermediary steps. I'll note a few things in the above photo:

1. A big rectangular hole has been cut into the forward chassis for accepting the Kato 11-109 drive unit that powers this thing. It was cut out with a disc cutter in my Dremel motor tool. If you're going to do this wear safety glasses, and go slow. Once the hole is cut it needs to be cleaned up with files.

2. The forward interior insert needs to be cut up to match the hole in the chassis. At this stage both interior inserts were painted black.

3. There's a long and complex story about the trailer's wheels. I'll try and be brief. Although the model is more-or-less HO scale, the wheels aren't even close to standard HO gauge, or standard 9mm N gauge either. There was going to be lots of work fitting standard HO-9 or N gauge wheels to the trailer, and after much head scratching I decided just to grind off the wheel flanges and pull the trailer along the road with the power car as if it were a truck's trailer. For running on Kato Unitram track this works ok. And it turns out since the wheel sets are close to N gauge, the track rails inadvertently help keep the trailer more-or-less tracking the power unit when in motion. That does increase rolling resistance, but the power unit appears to have more than enough umph to handle it. More on wheels, tracking, and turning radius a little further on.

4. Speaking of wheel sets, the toy wheel set that would go into the back end of the power car was eventually left off. Only the trailer incorporates those ground down toy wheel sets. The only wheels on the power car are those on the Kato drive unit.

There's a lot of equipment on the roof

5. The shell roofs were enhanced a little with a few extra mechanical looking boxes glued on and everything up there was painted with some greys and blacks. There probably needs to be a bit of weathering applied.

Styrene blocks were used as motor supports

One of the trickiest parts of construction was installing the Kato drive unit. Obviously the couplers and their supports were cut off before starting. Again, there was a lot of trial and error in measuring and fitting styrene blocks to the chassis and power unit until I got the heights and positions just right. In the above photo those blocks numbered 21 and 25 have been previously glued to the power unit and the resulting structure is being epoxied into the chassis. Those styrene strips on the track are there to temporarily lift the chassis to the correct height until the glue dries. Ground clearance is something like 1.5 mm - very low.

The forward power unit is loaded with weights

From this point on there was lots of testing on the track. Again, lots of trial and error, but here's what I hope is a summary:

1. The power unit was loaded down with 'a lot' of weight: a strip of chicklet style 1/4 oz weights plus an old lead fishing weight (which can't be used to fish because of the lead) pounded a bit flat. The trailer has a bit of a bumpy ride and the extra weight up front helps keep the power unit's wheels in contact with the track in the presence of this transferred shaking motion. I probably should have added a little extra weight to the trailer - not as much as up front - to help it roll a little better. Maybe next time.

2. The only strong - aka, metal - 'connection' between the trailer and power unit are the two flaps sitting one atop the other. Note that there's no positive mechanical connection. It's the weight of the power unit that maintains the connection through the flap to the trailer.

The trailer connection casting is discarded

The reason for this setup  is the trailer has to be loosely connected to the power unit so that trailer motions don't transfer to the power unit and cause it to lose contact with the rails.

This also meant that the metal castings in the toy that connect the two shells had to be discarded because they made the connection between the two far too rigid. The tail would literally wag the dog when this thing was in motion with the metal connection castings in place and locked together.

Ok, well as you see in the photo on the side the trailer casting was discarded, but I kept the one on the power unit as it provides just a little weight over the flap connection to hold things in place. 

Toy's baffle is not very flexible at all

The other piece that had to go was the baffle that covers the connection between the two cars. It's far too rigid and prevents the cars rotating with respect to each other. 

Again, after lots of trial and error, I improvised a new baffle by slicing the ends off the old one and replacing the middle with a piece of micro fibre eyeglass wipe. The wipe was blackened with a Sharpie pen, glued over the baffle ends, and then whole thing was inserted and glued between the cars. 

Before running, the new baffle needs to be carefully folded so it will open and close cleanly as the vehicle goes around curves and doesn't prevent the cars from freely rotating. After a lot of test runs I'm thinking the micro fibre baffle might be replaced by either a silk, mylar, or very thin plastic one to further improve the baffle's flexibility. I like the visual texture of the micro fibre, so maybe it'll be a silk one to try and retain some of that look.

Underside of the power unit

All these special provisions - removal of the toy's cast metal shell connector, replacement baffle, wheels with ground off flanges that run on the road surface, flap only connection between the cars - are needed because I'm trying to make the little vehicle run over curves that are far to tight for it, and because the connections between the cars, and between the cars and rail, are too numerous and too rigid. A moving vehicle needs flexibility to negotiate its travels and deal with upsets. A moving model needs that too. The basic toy doesn't because it's designed so junior can't break it - in that regard, it's a champ :-)

I know, I've skipped over some items like arms to the overhead wiring and new decals as they're relatively straight forward compared to the mechanical work.

Operationally, it's finicky to get set up and running. It has to be handled very gently when placing it on the track because the cars aren't really connected together by anything other than a thin piece of cloth. And that cloth has to be carefully folded so that it flexes in just the right way and doesn't cause the streetcar to stall on curves. But, once those are dealt with, it's smooth running, and I like the way it looks on the farm.

Overall, it's ok, but needs a lot of refinement: more flexible baffle, smoother running wheels in the trailer, and some sort of secure mechanical connection between the cars just to name a few. Another job for the future :-)

What I did on my summer vacation

As any owner of a time machine will tell you, developing an understanding of the structure of time is crucial if you hope to become a master time traveller. If you accidentally skid on some banana shaped time and veer off into imaginary time you can slide into some weird time streams where so-called real time intertwines with fictional time if you don’t steer properly. I nearly slid into a knotted chrono-abyss this summer during my break when I took a banana-chrono-corner with no time to spare, and after some hair restoring retro-steering I wound up outside Frank Madwood’s office. He was still doing his radio gig, but had recently bought the old model streetcar magazine, wireLog, and was running it out of his workshop. Apparently an article of mine was in the current issue so he gave me a copy. I took it and got out of there quick because according to Frank I was supposed to be dropping by his office any minute to discuss a new joint project on time travelling space hoppers. I didn’t want to confront my chrono-double in case the chrono-contradiction ripped the space-time continuum. 

So, here’s all I have to show for skidding on some banana-time. Warning: I can’t guarantee Madwood’s ghosts won’t knock on your door while you’re reading it.

Look up, look way up

Last week I glued up 16 poles for supporting the overhead wire. These particular ones are sized to span both tracks on the straight sections of the road. I'll need another bunch whose horizontal arms can reach over both tracks on corners where the track spacing is somewhat wider.

I should note that these are decorative and not designed to carry current to the model streetcars. The vertical poles are cut from bamboo skewers, and the horizontal arms are 3/32" square section basswood. A straight pin, with its head snipped off, coated with superglue is used to hold the arm to the vertical post. A small triangular gusset cut from 0.020" styrene was glued into the pole/arm joint for additional strength. To finish off, a wire was strung between the end of the arm and the pole. and held in place with glue. For connecting the overhead wiring to the arms I have some pins and Japanese seed beads for making the wire hangers, but I still need to figure out how to attach them - there'll be some fun playtime ahead on that task :-)

Measuring up for overhead wire support poles

I finished laying down the static grass along the perimeter where the poles for the overhead wire will go. I'm keen on making those poles so I thought I'd do some measuring to begin figuring out their dimensions.

The first thing was to line up the fleet on the track to estimate how high the wire needs to be above the road. It's looking like 65mm.

All three of those cars have been fitted with Kato N-scale drive units and are in varying states of operability. Over on the right is the Hong Kong tram, centre is the Jigger (pulled from the paint shop for this photo), and on the left is the my secret Siku Bombardier tram conversion (I'll do a full post on it sometime in the future; it sort of runs, but still needs a lot more work) I started last fall before going whole hog on the ELM book .

Well, I need to get back to inserting commas.

E. L. Moore's Husky time travelling VW pickup

Converting the Husky VW pickup diecast to look something like the one E. L. Moore used in a few of his photographs was a fairly easy job.

I must admit though that I didn't use any techniques commonly seen in YouTube videos dealing with diecast restorations. I decided not to completely disassemble the toy, strip away the paint with chemicals, respray it, and then put it back together with screws. I don't think Mr. Moore would have done anything like that. I took the easiest path, and I speculate he would have too.

Picking up a Jones Chem Co. | Outside the Carolina Foundry | Picking up at Bunn's Feed & Seed

Before I got started I had to pull together my reference material. I used images of the vehicle found in three of his construction articles: Jones Chemical Co., Carolina Foundry, and Bunn's Feed & Seed.

The first job was to carefully use a flat bladed screwdriver to pry the extensible scaffolding out of the truck's bed. It was in there quite solidly and took considerable force to free. I can only assume that was to make sure a child with kitbashing on their mind couldn't do an impromptu deconstruction :-)

And there's what you're left with: a big square hole in the bed. I eventually covered this over by gluing on a 1/16" piece of balsa wood as that appears to be what E. L. Moore did according to the reference photos.
 

One reason I didn't deconstruct this thing was that it appears to be held together with 4 rivets instead of the usual 2: there're 2 to attach the chassis to the body, and another 2 to hold a wheel springing plate in place. Yeap, the wheels are sprung on this baby so it doesn't bounce around at high speed on rough roads :-)

The chassis also indicates why I refer to this vehicle as a pickup and not a flatbed, which is what it appears to be: 'Volkswagen Pick Up' is stamped into the chassis.

All the painting I did was pure speculation. Even my assumption that Mr. Moore painted his and didn't use it box-stock is speculation. Just thought I'd note this.

I assumed that if he painted the body he'd choose some shade of Moore Green. All the colours I used on this project were brush applied Tamiya acrylics, and for the body I used XF-5, Flat Green. The bumpers were painted XF-16, Flat Aluminum, the chassis used XF-1, Flat Black, and the headlights were XF-2, Flat White. The wooden flat bed was painted with X-19, Smoke.

The part I haven't shown is where I installed the time machine. That'll just have to be my little secret, but I'll share photos of its anachronistic adventures :-) 

A red boxcar and yellow trailer in HOe

This little boxcar is based on one used by the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway in 1870. The TG&BR operated as a narrow gauge line (3’-6”) from its creation in 1868 up until it completed conversion to standard gauge in 1881. So, I fully admit this car is an anachronism on the Loonar Module, but the whole layout is an anachronistic fiction, so it fits right in :-)

The prototype was a 4-wheeler based on British railway practice and measured 15’ long. So, given this information, the boxcar sketch at Narrow Gauge Through the Bush, and the requirement to run on the Loonar Module’s N-gauge track, I started to think about what I’d have to do to make some sort of HOe model. 

Basic Peco NR-122 chassis (I've added a wire loop 'coupler' to left end)

The first decision was to buy a suitable British N-gauge wagon whose undercarriage was similar to the TG&BR boxcar’s as I didn’t think I could scratchbuild a chassis with the precision needed to run properly on the track. After some internet searching I was glad to see that one can buy kits of just chassis, which saved me from scrapping a perfectly good wagon body. The kit I settled on was Peco’s NR-122, 15ft WB Wagon Chassis. The 15ft WB part means the wheelbase is 15ft. I wasn’t sure if 15 N-scale feet was going to be too long to negotiate the layout’s tight curves, but overall this seemed to be the right size chassis for this project.

I needn’t have worried. It goes around the track just fine, and there was a lucky coincidence with this chassis: its deck measures 15 HO feet long by 4.5 HO feet wide, so lengthwise it matches the prototype. However, the deck’s width needed to be extended a bit.

Chassis with deck extended

Doing a few calculations I estimated the width of the prototype boxcar to be around 9.5’, which would be too wide for my track. Also, recall the prototype boxcar ran on track whose gauge was 3’-6”, and mine is around 2’-6”, so a boxcar of scale width would overhang the wheels too much. On the other hand, the Peco chassis’ 4.5’ width is a bit too narrow to be practical for this kind of car. As well, such a narrow width would make the car look too tall and skinny. In the end, to make the width more practical and better looking I glued on styrene pieces to the deck to increase the width to 6’. So, my HOe boxcar was sized to be built on a deck 15’ long and 6’ wide.

Once I had sorted out the chassis and deck, I sketched out a drawing. Nothing fancy, just something to remind me of the major dimensions and where the main detail items were to be positioned.

As with the canoe car, I'm not going to do a step-by-step through the construction of this little model, but instead show some built up photos and talk a bit.

The four sides are made from 0.020" styrene scraps. I scored vertical boards in with a scribing tool. These pieces were then reinforced on the back sides with pieces of 0.040" styrene glued on.

The overhead door track and end bumper on the side walls are cut from a piece of 0.040" styrene square stock, and the door lock is cut from pieces of 0.010" styrene.

The door handle is a leftover item from a Revell Lunar Module kit, and the grab iron ladders on the ends are bent from pieces of 26 gauge floral wire. 

Once the walls were glued up into a box and then glued to the chassis' deck, some further reinforcements were added.

First, some rectangular strip stock was used to reinforce two corners (the upper right and lower left ones in the photo), then two spacers were wedged between the side walls, and a beam was inserted between the two end walls to prevent those upper triangles from bowing in.

I used Weld Bond to secure the grab irons to the walls. 

After letting the glue joints harden for a day I moved on to building the roof and roof walk.

Both are built up from 0.020" styrene scraps. In retrospect I think the roof battens are a little too thick, and probably should have been made from either 0.010" or 0.005" styrene - oh well, live and learn.

The brake wheel was pried off a junker caboose and super glued to the end of a piece of 24 gauge floral wire.

You can get a bit better view of the end wall with the brake wheel in this photo.

As I've said many times, the digital camera is a harsh mistress and it's certainly true with this photo. The brake wheel looks all titled sitting on top of the wire, and the wire has got kinks in it. And, good grief, those grab irons. I'll only note that when everything is painted up, and the car's on the layout, it looks rather ok. However, if you're going to build one of these, consider using some straight piano wire for the brake, as well as commercial castings for the grab irons and brake wheel - remember I've classified this post as 'Casualized  HO' for a reason :-)

The car was now ready for painting.

The basic car colour is Revell's Aqua Color Reddish Brown Matt, 36137, painted on with a brush in as thin layers as I could manage, which turned out to be just a little too thick as much of the siding scribing has been lost. 

The roof was painted with Tamiya flat aluminum acrylic paint; grab irons, door handles, and brake wheel are Tamiya Flat Yellow; and the chassis components, brake wire, and door locks are Tamiya Dark Iron.

Once basic painting was done it was on to a little bit of weathering. Some loose washes of Tamyia Dark Iron and Flat Black were applied all over. When dry, a loose wash of a mix of Revell's Reddish Brown and Dark Green - to make a rusty colour - was slopped on the chassis and roof. 

What about that big 4* I hear you asking? It's hand painted on with some Tamyia flat white. 

Back in the '70s my sister is being a good sport lending scale

During the preparation stage on the boxcar project I found an N-scale freight car truck with an attached coupler in my scrap box. I thought I'd use it to build a little flat deck trailer for the boxcar. The one I had in mind to memorialize is that one over there I saw in the '70s - likely at the old Marmora train station. Mine isn't close to that in other than basic principles, so I can see me building a proper one later on.

This little thing was made from scraps of styrene L-angle, U-channel, and some 0.020" sheet. And of course I painted it yellow.

A little trailer like this one has a lot of uses.

Well, that's that.

Oh, wait a minute, one last thing. This project took only about 8 days of on-and-off work, an hour or two at a time, sometimes just ten minutes or so. I received the chassis in the mail on a Friday afternoon, by the following Wednesday all construction was finished, and by the Saturday both were painted and ready to run. That's some kind of record for me. I hope it continues.

*This boxcar was used to transport the equipment of the Lands & Forests Railway Test Facility’s hockey team, the Loons, to their first ever inter-departmental league game where they faced the Skies & Waters Snapping Turtles, with whom they would become arch rivals in the years to come. Unbeknownst to the Loons until game time, the first puck drop was by none other than Bobby Orr, who was invited to kick off the first game of the season. The Loons won and in honour of the win they stencilled a giant 4, Bobby Orr’s jersey number, on the side of the car that carried their equipment to that legendary game.