This is why you should never renew your subscription for more than one year at a time. I was just in communication with Steve Barry about the June issue on Thursday. He said that it was in the mail and should arrive in 10 days. Never mentioned anything about going out of business.
I think that maybe it will be revived in some form under new owners. But people don’t get hteir news from magazines any more. Trains has survived by changing and being more of an industry publication than a fan magazine. One railfan subscribes to R & R and then shares it with 10 others. Hard to make money that way. Once Hal and Jim Boyd were both gone the handwriting was on the wall. The writing went downhill as did editing. Lame stories about photography expediitions didn’t make it with alot of people. We’ll have to see what happens.
Gonna Miss 'em! Have been a Carstens customer off and on for a very long time. Started with MR Craftsman and then R&R, and other Railfan pubs of theirs. Have also watched their format and quality go down hill in a slow slide towards oblivion- for most of the reasons previous posters have mentioned. Kalmbach is my go to niche publisher, fresh material and terrific format…
Mr. Smith probably hit the nail on the head when he said “hobby-specific.” The sad fact of the matter is EVERY hobby-specific endeavor seems to be getting in trouble, hunting, fishing, model cars, model ANYTHING. Young people seem to be losing interest in anything they can’t do with a computer or an I-pod.
Yes, the times are changing, and not for the better.
I too had already decided to stop subscribing, mostly to save money, but also because I wasn’t finding it as interesting anymore (and the fact that the June issue still hasn’t come). Sad though, since this 32-year old has been getting R&R since I was in grade school. Perhaps Kalmbach will pick up the pieces and add the complimentary pieces into Trains and Model Railroader?
I’ve always enjoyed their magazines, and several of the columns in R&R have no directly corresponding columns in Trains. The two that pop to mind are “Transit Currents” and “Capital Lines”. They were good columns with one or two paragraph summaries of actions and events affecting railroading and transit across the US (and to a lesser degree, the world.)
I also enjoyed the presentation of “Railroad News” in R&R, again, short summaries of industry news, accompanied by photos. In some respects this corresponds well to the online Trains “News Wire”. (of course R&R also had their online News Wire, sometimes scooping Trains on news.)
The “Preservation” column is another that I found interesting, and again, with no similar replacement in Trains.
I took both magazines to get a broader view of the industry, Trains for a more trade magazine view, and R&R for a more railfan oriented view, but with good industry information.
Sorry to see them go…I still have quite a few Railroad and Railfan & Railroad magazines in boxes in my garage and re-read them periodically especially on cold winter days.
There are many railroad-related web sites that are free and open to the public with some sort of internet access. The information is timely–not a month or two behind as magazines are. It reminds me of an old axiom I once heard concerning marriage, “Why buy a cow when you can get all the milk you want for free?”
I had my first article published in Railfan & Railroad in 2013, so I’m happy they gave me a chance and published my work. Its disappointing to see them going out of business, but im also not that surprised either. They gave me a free year subscription but I chose not to renew due to a lack of content that interested me.
Carstens sent me 4 or 5 renew notices in the last few months trying to keep me on board. They were also having issues just getting the magazines out - I didn’t receive the final 3 issues. In the end I couldn’t justify spending the money anymore and now it appears that I made a wise decision and wont have to worry about getting those charges off my credit card.
Just read the comments of others and I have to agree that the Internet and Sandy among other problems was too much to contend with. At one time they did put out a decent magazine.
Just read the comments of others and I have to agree that the Internet and Sandy among other problems was too much to contend with. At one time they did put out a decent magazine.