I never ever see anyone (besides myself) comment on an article they have read in RMC, Mainline Modeler, etc. on this forum. I don’t see it as being disrespectful to MR to post a comment about a helpful/interesting article I saw in another mag. Am I wrong here? Is commenting on articles from other mags an un-written “no-no” for the MR forum?
I don’t get any other mags so I don’t have anyhting to somment on. I don’t even get MR anymore either so I can’t comment on anything.
-Smoke
No, people will occasionally mention articles in other magazines. Kalmbach knows that this is healthy for the hobby. I subscribe to MR, but I’ll occasionally pick up a copy of RMC. The two magazines have different target audiences. RMC really aims for some of the hardest-core modellers, the ones who drill out brass tubing to make custom side-lights for cabooses. MR aims more for the middle. Lately, I think they’ve come up a notch or two. There were a number of posts last year about how MR had been “dumbed down” to a more beginner level, and I think they’ve begun to address that.
Why did you stop getting model railroad mags altogether? I get a lot of insparation from the hobby press.
I don’t think it’s as much an unwritten rule as it is that relatively few people read the “other” magazines (besides, isn’t MM gone? I know MR’ing is all done).
These other mags tend to focus on specific details that, unless you have a specific interest in that one subject, tends to bore the heck out of people. Model Railroader is a generalist publication, and this forum tends to reflect that.
Let me put it this way, I get RMC and I don’t see all that much in there that interests me. MR, OTOH, usually has something of interest in it.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
As was addressed above, MR has become more about “inspiration” and less about how to achieve the result. My money now goes to NG&SL Gazette, among others, where I can still learn new techniques. RMC’s better at that, too.
I got alot of insperatition from there articals to start my layout(More so insperatition from the fourms). Ut’s not a unwritten rule taht you can’t say anything about other mags. I think most people don’t subscribe to other mags. MR is the only one I need.
Having just yesterday referenced RMC on a thread about decoder installation you are not the only one, but not many do. I actually prefer RMC, but my interest has really moved towards scratch building and it caters more to my interest. I get MR as well and enjoy reading it every month.
I’m still getting MR, but I prefer N Scale Railroading, N Scale Magazine, and The Keystone Modeler.
I may let my MR subscription lapse… I think the problem is not with MR but with me. My interests have really narrowed, so much of what’s in MR is not my style.
I can still draw inspiration from HO and O scale articles (I kitbashed my N scale coal mine after an HO article in MR).
What doesn’t appeal to me are those layouts with every structure a ramshackle over-detailed wood-sided museum piece, or how to buy my first trainset, or the latest 4x8’ HO project railroad set in the upper midwest. MR’s from Wisconsin. We get it.
But I don’t ask MR to change for me. If MR stops suiting my needs, then I will move on.
I would have to pay for it myself and not having a job I decided I could use the money in better ways. This summer I have been custom painting and that is the only money I make.
-Smoke
Yes, there is only one unwritten rule: “Do not talk about Fight Club.”
What’s that suppose to mean? What’s wrong with Wisconsin?
Nothing. But the magazine is sold worldwide; the overwhelming majority of readers don’t necessarily want to see yet another midwest-based 4x8 layout. The editors need to get out a little more.
It would be neat to see a 4 x 8 HoN3 layout in MR. D&RGW theme would be the best.
I mention RMC, Mainline Modeler, or other magazine all the time if it’s pertinent to the question being answered, and have never been taken to task by Kalmbach for so doing.
I hardly consider Wisconsin “Midwest”. I call it north Woods. Midwest is Flat and The eastern Midwest(Indina, Ohio, etc)have rolling hills. I think they do Midwest theamed layouts because it’s closer to home. Or because they think that the mojority of people model the midwest?[%-)]
No, because they’ve already done a WC project layout, a BN set in Wisconsin layout, a few Wisconsin 4x8s, etc.
Many of the track plans they put out there are for the upper Mississippi valley.
I was very excited when they were going to do a Lancaster County, PA (my family’s anscestral home) project layout. But that’s the one they had a professional layout builder do. Oddly enough, the people who built it were from Lancaster, but the end result (save for the Amish barn-raising) didn’t look much like Lancaster to me.
Wherever it is you choose to call Wisconsin, yes, it’s very nice and pretty. But MR seems to me to have a bias there. Just like N Scale Railroading is strongly biased toward the Pacific Northwest (and consquestly, NP, GN, and SP&S), since the editor Kirk Reddie hails from there.
But this of course misses my point that MR has become too broad for a guy like me. But that’s not MR’s fault; it’s mine.
Hence, I’m axiously awaiting the June issue of The Keystone Modeler from the PRRT&HS. No ads. Just fine, high-fidelity, rivet-counting Pennsy modeling bliss!
Exactly.
I subscribe to MR. But I pickup a copy of MRC a couple times a year, because they have some different ads than MR, and an occasional article I can’t digest at the magazine counter.
Not at all. Trains.com has this Model Train Magazine Index…
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?L=1&tmpl=tm_book
The vast majority of my model railroading library are Kalmbach Publications, but; I have on occassion referred to other mags from my collection including those from Model Railroad Craftsman & N Scale Magazine when appropriate to the forum topic.
The advice in special books authored by Robert Schleicher, such as “N Scale Model Railroading” and “Scenery for Model Railroads, Dioramas and Miniatures” are second to none, and complement the advice found in Kalmbach books. See…
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=S&cmdtext=book+"schleicher,+robert"&sort=2