I’m lucky: I have bound volumes of MR from 1945 through 1962, plus three years’ of loose copes in magazine file boxes, so I have stuff like several construction series by Mel Thornburgh on building O scale locos–mostly B&O, but one Wabash (Mogul)–and a couple of HO locos. Plus, he did other stuff, plus others built in several scales. Sadly, I had every MR, with indexes, from January, 1962 through December, 2008, but couldn’t find big, sturdy boxes in which to pack all those magazine file boxes, which held two and a half years each, and had to scrap them in the move out of my old apartment. (Pardon me while I have a good cry–again.)
As others have said, the used magazines are available (I’ve been buying specific issues from a well-known East Coast “transportation” magazine place (am I allowed to say, “Railpub.com”?). MR will gladly sell you photocopies of specific articles. (That All-Time Goody would be just the ticket, if you can afford it, and I can’t. You can print out hard copies from it and everything.)
When I first got my feet wet, customizing HO brass steam locos, I used Thornburgh’s 6-part Wabash Mogul series for guidance. That series was in January through June of 1959, MR’s 25th anniversary, and what I learned from him and others has stood me in good stead (I built a chunky little 42"-drivered O scale Mogul over an inexpensive Japanese mechanism when I was 24 and still a little rough around the edges. I took it into Milwaukee and showed it to Linn Westcott, who liked it enough to send me to Art Schmitt, the Company Photographer. (You’ll find it in the June, 1965, MR, if you’re interested."
The biggest problem, as was pointed out (pardon me; I can’t look back, locked in this mode) is finding out, but maybe some of the Old-timers could compile a list. I did a series on superdetailing the popular HO Porter Mogul for MR, but they only pri