Paying Tribute

Over the past few weeks, you may have heard about the existence of the Iowa Interstate Cosa Nostra. While Omertà prohibits me from divulging too much detail on our activities, I do want to take a moment and recognize our Capo dei Capi… Joe Atkinson.

Recently, I had the chance to visit Joe’s IAIS 4th Sub layout in person and spend some time with my friend. As was expected, his layout is fast becoming a masterpiece with scenes that accurately depict the western Iowa towns of Adair, Anita, Wiota, and Atlantic.

Joe is taking the time to develop tie-for-tie recreations of these locations, and the effect is already jaw-dropping. Even at this stage of development, I found myself immersed in each area. Adding to the experience is Joe’s well-appointed layout space, which left me wanting to completely redo our basement the moment I walked inside his.

I was also reminded as to why we refer to Joe as the Godfather. Without him, modeling the Iowa Interstate simply doesn’t happen. Joe is single-handedly responsible for bringing the railroad to the attention of the modeling community, which in turn brought it to the attention of the modeling industry, which in turn gave us ready-to-run IAIS models, which made it possible for yours truly to carve out a piece of territory as a Capo in the IAIS mafia.

For those reasons, I am grateful to Joe for his friendship, mentorship, and support… in and out of this hobby. Of course, I gave him his tribute in the form of some technology that will hopefully bring another level of prototype accuracy to his layout.

Anything for the Godfather.