Thursday, October 14, 1999

by the Wunderland Toast Society

Everyone's asking, "When are the new Icehouse sets going to be ready??" and indeed, we've been wondering the same thing. Every time we'd start to think that the Day of First Pieces had arrived, we'd instead be told it would be a few days more. It's been like waiting for Christmas morning, except that the calendar keeps getting stuck during the second and third weeks of December.

Needless to say, we were really hoping we'd have the first sample pieces in our hands by today, but unfortunately, it was not to be. The good news is, the mold is reportedly finished, and it will be put into operation for the first time tomorrow morning. (For the benefit of those who don't want to wait another whole week for this news, I'll post a report to the Icehouse mailing list sometime tomorrow evening, when we get back from the factory. [Update: we're back, and the samples are great! I've posted photos...])

As for the bigger question, of when we expect to ship out the pre-orders, here is our current best guess: November 1. Even if we assume that the first samples will pass muster sometime tomorrow, it'll then take KLON a week or two to actually make all the pieces, plus we haven't yet gotten the books back from the printers. But we're hoping to have all the elements in hand by Halloween weekend, during which we will frantically assemble game sets, hopefully being able to take the pre-orders to the Post Office first thing on Monday morning.

However: There might be yet more delays. Cross your fingers.

Last week, I bought a Lionel train set in an antique store: a near-perfect duplicate of the one Santa left for me in 1971. It was in such good condition (apparently never-used) that I briefly considered just keeping it intact; but toys are meant to be played with, so this week, I've been having just a whole lot of fun playing with my trains.

The "new" train set provided me with much needed replacement parts for my original train, whose engine was all but worn out by heavy use during the Nixon and Ford administrations. When we built the Kitchen/Living Room line (during the Bush era), I got a new train: a passenger line, like I'd always dreamed of having as a kid. But since my old freight train was no longer operational, another childhood fantasy, that of running two trains on the layout at the same time, remained out of reach... until now.

To keep the accident potential at a minimum, I'm running the trains with just a few cars each. Only two of the New York Central's seven coaches are in service, while the freight line is running "Wild Wild West"-style, with nothing but a caboose. (This actually was a very common configuration during this train's original lifetime.) Suffice it to say, the trains look really cool chasing each other around the tracks.Anyway, I've been having fun.