Just went through a couple of boxes of old issues of “HO Monthly Model Railroad Magazine,” “Model Trains,” and “Railroad Model Craftsman.” I had several 1950 issues of HO Monthly. It dealt with HO exclusively and was published in Philadelphia. Paul Mallery was a frequent contributer. Since I acquired these back issues in the early 1960s from Kalmbach, I believe Kalmbach acquired the magazine and turned it into Model Trains. For many years, Model Railroader and Model Trains were published simultaneously, and I believe sometime in the late '60s, MT was incorporated into MR. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Bill Schopp (aka The Layout Doctor), E.L. Moore, and Whit Towers were frequent contributers to RMC. Bill was prolific, often providing three or more articles a month, mostly on layout design. He also wrote locomotive “crosskitting” articles where he created unique locomotives by combining parts from two or more brass locomotives. What a scream! E.L. had articles almost every month creating interesting and inexpensive structures. Whit’s articles mostly talked about layout philosophy, design, scenery and operations. I now get a chuckle from the frequent page numbering errors in RMC’s table of contents. Almost unforgiveable, however, was the complete omission in the TofC of the June 1959 issue on Whit’s article on the design and philosopy for his Alturas and Lone Pine Railroad: this was my all-time favorite RMC article for goodness sakes!
I have plenty of old MR’s, but only 2 old RMC’s - and if the condition of mine are any indicator, I know why. The RMC issues have deteriorated badly, the pages are yellowing and very brittle. Model Railroader that is even OLDER are nice and glossy and soft still. Just better quality. There is a very nice industry to scratchbuild in one of the RMCs though that I intend to try one of these days.
MR in the 60’s had a certain whimsy to it as well - there is one article credited to “The Model Railroader Staff” with an asterisk. In the footnotes it says “Each will blame the other for any errors” LOL! Lots of good stuff though, including Ed Ravenscroft on his color-coded tack method of car routing. Lots of layout plans by John Armstrong and others - and the nice thing is that even though a lot of the plans and concepts are incorporated into Track Planning for Realistic Operation, the individual articles go into more depth on each subject. Well worth the read.
–Randy
I have over 50 back issues of MRR form the early 90’s. Even though it was only 10-15 years ago, so many things have changed. The magazine was all black and white then. Now, its all color. Columns have come and gone, editors stepped down /replaced, and many other things.
I have some MR from the 40’s. 1944 had mostly articles why they could not get materials and the staff was all to war. 1945 started to have signs of hope and welcome articles as staff returned. 1946 suggested making scenery out of paster paris and asbestos. 1947 suggested an asabestos board to do soldering on. Scratch building was the in thing because there were few kits. Interesting stuff.
I have all but 6 MR back to 1950 plus a dozen or so from the 40’s. RMC back to 70 plus several before that. Some of my favorites are the NMRA Bulletins when Whit Towers was the editor (70’s and I think into part of the 80’s). He had several columns and regular contributers that were very different from the commercial press.
Enjoy
Paul
Old MR issues are a great way to inspire nostalgic reverie–even the ads can be entertaining in this respect!
Anyone know where I can get an English Switcher and Valvegear kit (1950)?
If you are asking for what I think you are, yes. Used to be Varney, used to be English, now back in Bowser form.
Valve Gear Kit
http://www.caboosehobbies.com/catalog/default.cfm
Search for
scale=“HO”
category=“Detail Parts”
manufacturer=“Bowser Mfg.”
keyword=“valve gear”
Locomotive
http://www.bowser-trains.com/holocos.php
The Old Dog has trouble faulting RMC too much on this problem. RMC continued to use newsprint for years. The Dog would assume this was to keep the cover price affordable.
You might ask your local librarian for some suggestions. Just say the works “acid paper” and they will know what you are talking about. They might also add some X-Rated words to your vocabulary!
Have fun