MTH RailKing R21 subway set

MY OFFICE WAS hotter than a jail cell in on the wrong side of the border. I sat in the dark with my .45 on my desk, enjoying a lively conversation with Misters Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. Then I heard it. That rumble, those voices. It was haunting. Almost like the faded memory of a hopped-up gunsel who was runner-up in a quick draw.

Where had I heard it before? Was it when I swiped the microfilm from the Fat Man in Cairo? Nah. Was it while I tracked down that agent selling the B-36 plans down Rio way? Nope, that wasn’t it either. It was when I was someplace, someplace dark, down below. Someplace near 57th Street or maybe close to 42nd.

Then it hit me square in the face with the force of a drunken palooka with a roll of pennies in his fist: It was the RailKing R21 subway set rolling along my layout.

Most people don’t pay any attention to public transit. Ya chuck a buffalo in, walk through the turnstile, and hope that the trip doesn’t dredge up any bad memories that can’t be washed away by cheap Scotch or cheaper hooch. But this baby is a classic.

With each car measuring 141/2 inches knuckle to knuckle, it’s made for the tight-radius crowd. But what do you expect for two or three bills? Ethel Merman? The cars are a good copy of the Real McCoys with enough clues to the train’s prototype that a near-sighted shamus could follow them to a carrot factory.

The cars are painted in a Tuscan color that looks about as rusty as the main gate at Sing Sing. The interior is illuminated, but the lights are on and nobody’s home. But just drop a fiver or two around the car and it’ll probably fill up with good-time Johnnies in short order. There are plenty of windows on each car and the doors look wide enough to accommodate one of your in-laws after a turkey day dinner.

The paint job is jake, and the fine print is so clear it would make a lawyer cry all the way to the courthouse.

The sound system has voices of folks you’d swear had monikers like “Broadway,” “Lemon Drop,” or “Fast Eddie.” These guys sound like they’re heading out of town to place a couple of G. Washingtons on the gee-gees running down at Hialeah.

Is this baby fast? It could beat Seabiscuit in the quarter-mile. I clocked the slow-speed shuffle at 11.7 miles per, while it got up to a trot hitting 71 miles per.

The R21 has a single electro-coupler that will drop a car as fast as a schoolboy can chuck his dice when the Mother Superior rounds the playground corner.

And being a product of Big Mike’s gang out in Maryland, you know it has more muscle than a convention of longshoremen. It can muscle 1 pound, 2 ounces, which means you can tack on 54 O gauge freight cars full of goods hot off the Jersey Turnpike, sit back, and watch this baby roll! Each car has two pickup rollers spaced 81/2 inches apart. You’ll only find more pickups when the fleet rolls into town.

The MTH R21 subway may make you wish for the days of the 5-cent stogie, the Bronx Bombers, and old Tail Gunner Joe keeping both eyes on Commies and the Heinz bottles.

If your layout runs toward the era of hot guns and private dicks that could hold their hooch, then this vintage rapid transit gear may be just what you’re looking for.