Welcome to Thunder Mesa Kits, featuring unique, limited run 1:48 scale model kits from Dave Meek’s Thunder Mesa Studio. Our specialty is On30, but all of our original designs are suitable for O, On3, or other 1:48 scale model railroads. We do not offer kits in other scales at this time.
Our kits feature laser cut precision, complete instructions, and full build videos for ease of assembly. Limiting the run of each kits means that we can focus our full attention on each project in turn to assure the highest possible quality. It also means that you as a builder are guaranteed to own something that is unique and won’t be turning up on every model railroad you see. Everything we do is designed and manufactured in the United States.
The Story of Latigo
Our current run of kits all exist within the story of Latigo. Never a real place, Latigo is inspired by dozens of authentic gold and silver boomtowns that sprang up all over the Wild West near the end of the 19th Century. Each new kit in the series will find its home on the new Latigo section of the On30 Thunder Mesa Mining Company layout, expanding on the larger story there. A new kit is scheduled to be released about every three months or so, along with a corresponding build video on Dave Meek’s Thunder Mesa Trains YouTube channel. The structures will be freelanced designs for the most part, but will reflect common building styles and practices of the era suitable for small towns from the 1800’s to the middle to late 20th Century (with proper modifications). Each new kit will have a “history” of its own while telling another part of the Latigo story. As each new kit is introduced, the structure will be filled in on the layout map, continuing until the entire town is completed - a multi-year project.
Here’s the tall-tale of Latigo’s founding:
Gold was discovered in the area when an itinerant saddle-bum by the name of Cinch Latigo was shooting at a rattlesnake. He missed the snake, but the lead bullet from his .45 split a nearby rock in-two, revealing a gold nugget bigger than a man’s fist. As was often the case, news of the new strike spread like wildfire, and soon the early prospectors were followed by merchants, saloon keepers, fallen ladies, confidence men, gunslingers, and speculators. A boomtown sprang up overnight - first called “Rattlesnake” for the way gold was discovered, but later renamed as “Latigo” when the railroad and post office finally came to town.
And that’s where we find the town now, right around the turn of the century, as the old boomtown is just starting to get respectable - but isn’t quite there yet.