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Carstens Publications shuts down
What about all the back issues for sale?
I’m mad they didn’t bother to notify their subscribers. What about the remaining time on my subscriptions?
I am forced to agree that the quality of the magazines (both writing, editing, and photography) wasn’t great, and Bill Schaumburg seemed to put editing second to his personal travels, but I tried to support them anyway.
And I don’t buy the economy excuse - Railpace still exists, with much higher quality production values and few ads.
I will miss RMC and R&R. They complimented MR and TRAINS.
It seems that there were multiple calamities that caused the problems at Carstens – all of which added up to a loss of cash flow.
OMG:( very horrible!!
Our families go back many, many years. This is very sad news.
Total Bummer.
Unfortunate, but now I’m glad I didn’t renew my subscription.
I got screwed by Sentry Publications on Wings and AirPower magazines just after I renewed. I hope Carstens makes things right. I am baffled why any business would ask you to resubscribe when they are on thin ice. Seems almost like a scam.
Their own making. Their mags were never fresh and exciting. They had the same format for years, making them very boring. Stale writing, booting articles on rail dining. It’s a good thing when Kalmbach does make various changes.
I wonder which economic climate he is talking about. U.S. economy, overall? Print media? Or hobby-specific? (We know hobby shops are dying like flies.)
Disappointing news, I have bought a number of their books over the years.
Carstens’ website is still up as of 7:34p EDT 8/22/14.
But it’s http://railfan.com/railnews/ that has the announcement.
I rode trains all over the UK and the young were more interested to play on their phones than enjoy the scenery that was going by for FREE!
What a shock. It is a sad day for the hobby industry. Jim Boyd must be rolling over in his grave. Will truly miss Railfan & Railroad
RIP Another victim of changing times & the internet.
Sad day. 
Carstens had run into a dynamic their business could not cope with. It is a shame, but the electronic media competition and their storm losses were too much for them to overcome. They gave it what they had. Farewell…
My opinion is that they never seemed to recover from their facility being badly hit by Super Storm Sandy. To this day, they were on a lag publishing schedule with R&R. Gonna miss you guys.