Harvesting old model RR magazines - The final tally

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

As you may recall, I posted on here about my plan to harvest the “good stuff” from 300+ various model RR magazines (MRR, RMC, MRG, PM) I had bought off ebay. Well, I finished, and the results are thus:

Stack height of “husks” (harvested magazines): 57 inches

Stack height of harvested articles, including folders and photocopies of double-backed pages: 21 inches

I would say that at least half of the article height would have added to the raw magazine height, so I’d figure that I reduced my shelf requirements by 70% through harvesting. .

Now a bit about what I kept. I have a number of folders and I’d have to say I’ve saved almost anything of value (in 2006) that appeared in any of them, with a few notable exceptions. The folders are:

Gondolas and open loads

Flats

Covered Hoppers

Hoppers

Tanks

Intermodal, piggyback, and vehicles

Cabooses

Stock cars

MOW and company service

Boxcars pre-'62

Boxcars post-'61

Reefers, milk, and ventilators

EMD B-B locos

Other B-B locos

EMD C-C, A-1-A and bigger locos

Other C-C, A-1-A, and bigger locos

EMD F units

Switchers

General locomotives

Steam locomotives

Electric and interurban railways & equipment

Passenger trains & equipment

Rolling stock general/misc

Model RR operation & maintenance

Layout plans & planning

Layout construction

Benchwork

Wiring, electronics, devices

Scenery

Track, switches, switch machines

Signals, detection, and control

Groundwork, roads, sidewalks, retaining walls

Structures & details

Lineside details

Locomotive servicing

Railroad structures [towers, shanties, etc.]

Railroad bridges, tunnels, and turntables

Stations & depots - Passenger & combinatio

2

My father in law does that. Me, I keep mine intact. I have a pretty solid collection back to the 50’s. With he advent of things like the online index (see link at the top of the page), it is WAY easier just to keep the actual magazines and find what you need via the index. I use plastic magazine holders, one year per unit, labelled on the spine as to which mag and what year it is. Within each year they are in order from Jan-Dec. That way, when I want to find the article on converting a 55-ton open hopper to a covered hopper, I can quickly find the issue and article rather than dig through a bunch of loose pages and aprtial pages in a file folder.
I find the layout tours useful as well - I always compare the space to my space and see how others have managed to work things in. Especially in newer issues where the usually accurately draw the plan to scale (there have been a few major boo-boos in the past year or so, but they are usually accurate).

–Randy

3

I want a CD-ized version of all mags. Mad Magazine did it to their comics.

The mag collection is huge taking a lot of room.

digitizing myself would take lots of time.

I find old ADs valuable to check out, I wish they would put them in the search also.

Each mag lists them in its own index, why not put it in their search of things.

It took me some doing to find an old Winton Ad.

4

I started off with six or eight folders, and you see where I ended up, mainly because I wanted to keep the folder thickness to an inch or less. I have all full pages and I think I’ve sorted them pretty well. Once I know which folder it’s in I can go through the folder in less than a minute, which I’d bet is as fast or faster than using the index here and going to the mag in a binder. On top of all that I just don’t have the space to store all those mags. I can afford two drawers in a file cabinet though.

“What if you don’t know which file it’s in?” Well, I’m an engineer (manufacturing, not engineman) so I’m pretty good about sorting and classifying technology stuff like this, if I do say so myself. If I can’t figure out which one - or at most three - files it’s in, there’d be no way I could use the index anyway. If you’re looking for a particular photo of a PS-2 being loaded at a grain elevator, but you don’t know which elevator or road the elevator was on, you’re SOL with the index anyway.

I did what you said, except I doubt I’m ever going to have - or be able to build and manage - anything bigger than something in a 9 x 12 room, so I only kept the small plans. Looking at somebody else’s layout just doesn’t have any appeal to me beyond the initial read. If anything I’ve kept a page or two because they used an unusual technique or some

5

That sounds like a good idea!