Anybody know what’s up at Hundman Publishing? I’m a subscriber to MM and haven’t gotten a new edition since the August 2006 issue. Awhile back, at the website I noticed that there was a big sale on back issues, which was to be some kind of close-out (since extended). Now I go to mainlinemodeler.com and find that that website is not available at all. These are NOT positive indicators! I understand that the publisher has sold one of his other magazines. Probably not a good sign either.
As someone said in another thread on this forum, is Mainline Modeler “circling the drain?”
Interesting you should ask. I just received an e-mail from Dr. Nicholas Muff who has been a prolific contributer to Mainline for several years. He is best known for his drawings of KCS locomotives and structures. After seeing my recent article in Great Model Railroads 2007, he e-mailed me through my MA&G website to ask if I might be interested in scale plans of the New Orleans Union Passenger Station for my next level (I said yes and was blown away with what he sent me).
During our correspondences, I asked him what was going on with MM and he verified that the magazine is in fact no longer in publication - no notices, no announcements, nothing. I, too, am a subscriber and just renewed in April. I guess I’ll never see that money again. In fact, Nick said that Bob Hundman owed him several thousand dollars for his work, but won’t respond to e-mails, letters or phone calls. That, to me, is outrageous.
As a long time subscriber to Model RailroadING, I would have been much less surprised to hear that they folded, particularly with their track record over the past several years of delayed and skipped issues…don’t EVEN get me started on that!
I also subscribe to RailModel Journal which is slipping in punctuality, and Railroad Model Craftsman which has always been dependable. However, I just received the December issue a few days ago…normally I get it at the beginning of each month.
Only my other subscription, MR, is like an old faithful friend. It is the flagship of mrr publications and I hope it still has many good years ahead of it - or at least outlives me! But given the trend of these other heavy hitters, one wonders.
As for Mainline Modeler, you can pretty much kiss that subscription moolah goodbye. [:(]
Draft snip from December’s TKM [The Keystone Modeler, PRR Modeling e-zine] “From the Editor.”
"Last month in TKM I mentioned the discontinuance of Mainline Modeler.
Now this month the falling of flags continues, with Model Railroading
(MRG) filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and shutting down the business.
Randy has advised the stockholders (me included) that the last issue was
August 2006, with an October cover date. The 2007 On30 Annual will be
the final publication from Highlands Station, Inc.
"They are trying to find another publisher to honor the unfulfilled
subscriptions. I’m sorry to hear this news but as I said in the November
column I thought another was inevitable.
"Randy essentially places the blame for the magazines demise on
several factors, some quite interesting. He states that although hobbies
and crafts generally weather rescissions rather well, the one that began
in 2000 was the first to reflect that the cultural change in the younger
generations whereby they are more interested in being entertained than
entertaining themselves, through hobby activities. It was the beginning
of the Internet and electronic entertainment venues having a measurable
impact on hobbies and crafts.
"The fact that advertising plummeted, hobby shop closings greatly
affected the retail distribution, some of the shops that remained opened
didn’t pay their bills (some of these folks are in trouble also), and
that subscriptions decreased all contributed to the demise.
"In a closing statement Randy points out that more model
railroaders dying off than there are coming into the hobby and those<
"Interesting you should ask. I just received an e-mail from Dr. Nicholas Muff who has been a prolific contributer to Mainline for several years. He is best known for his drawings of KCS locomotives and structures. After seeing my recent article in Great Model Railroads 2007, he e-mailed me through my MA&G website to ask if I might be interested in scale plans of the New Orleans Union Passenger Station for my next level (I said yes and was blown away with what he sent me).
During our correspondences, I asked him what was going on with MM and he verified that the magazine is in fact no longer in publication - no notices, no announcements, nothing. I, too, am a subscriber and just renewed in April. I guess I’ll never see that money again. In fact, Nick said that Bob Hundman owed him several thousand dollars for his work, but won’t respond to e-mails, letters or phone calls. That, to me, is outrageous."
Did I by any chance hear someone mention “Class Action Suit” ?
Same thing happened to me a number of years ago with Games magazine. 2 months after renewing for 3 years, the parent company went into bankruptcy. Eventually, some staffers revived the magazine as a new company, but my subscription money was just lost.
The demise of Mainline Modeler is a real tragedy. It was a high-quality publication (notwithstanding the typos in each issue), with excellent photography and articles, and printed on high-gloss paper. I never subscribed, but I often bough issues at the hobby shop. I learned a lot about scratchbuilding parts and modifying rolling stock kits for specific prototypes. I’ll miss it.
I am only a survey of one, but a few years back I looked at my spending on model publications and concluded that I needed to rationalize. Model Railroading was the first to go. I always felt it was low on content of interest to me, and not very well printed. The photos were frequently out of register and blurry. I ended up keeping 2 Model Railroader and Model Railroad Craftsman, which IMO offered the best quality and value of the available journals. I have to say that I am not surprised that M Railroading failed and I am not sure it was entirely driven by the market so much as the product that was offered.
Model Railroading was like you say for a while, when it was edited by Amy Hundman (I think that is her name, Bob Hundman’s daughter). Photos were way too dark, and the overall magazine wasn’t very appealing. But when Randy Lee took it over, the mag became much improved. Too bad you didn’t see copies in the past ten years or so, as it was really high quality. And it featured some well known authors and photographers (such as me!!) [:D]
I first noticed a main difference when I got paid for my last article in March of 2005 - I was paid $60.00 a page, down from the $80.00 they used to pay. When I asked why the answer was a decline in circulation.
I recently photographed two layouts in my area with the intent of submitting them to MRG, as they had previously published items on them. Guess I’ll have to shop around, although there isn’t really much for freelance author/photographers these days.
I have been a plaintiff in 3 class action suits. I’ve received a total of less than $10 from the three settlements combined after the lawyers had finished gorging themselves. I doubt many firms would even take on a small potatoes outfit like an MR publisher, aside maybe from Kalmbach.
My wife was in one of those - a “book club” deal she had trouble getting out of (she thought she was buying one book, but they kept sending and billing - took several letters and returned books before they stopped, by then she had “bought” 3 more books she didn’t want). The lawyers got several million dollars, she got a coupon for 50% off of another book!!!
I figure those class action lawsuits are just another bottom feeder lawyer getting rich at the expense of justice.
I’ve only purchased Mainline Modeler if there was something I was interested in reading about. I do see Railroad Historical Society magazines have been on the rise over recent years. I can read stories about my favorite railroad and modeling articles. So count up how many Historical magazines are published now. There’s a lot of them!
A couple of years ago Bergie posted annual magazine circulation figures here for a host of scale model railroading publications. Some of the numbers were really shocking and honestly suggested that all except MR and RMC were pretty much at death’s door back then. With the steady decline in the actual hobbyist numbers, it really isn’t at all surprising to see several of the magazines starting to fall by the wayside. I strongly suspect that over the next 5-10 years all but MR, RMC and perhaps one of the N-scale magazines, will be gone.
Class action suit for What ??? A missed out 20 or thirty bucks worth of magazines one will never get ? Anyone consider the amount of time and effort one would have to devote for that tiny sum of money, the fact that the company is closed down and it would be like tring to squeeze blood from a rock ? I can see a class action suit if you paid on a charge card and they continued to deduct from former subsrcibers cars or a fitness club where they clsoe and put members out for hundreds in unfufilled prebought months, but a class action suit over such a small amount ? Certainly people have better things to do with their time.
Chalk it up to one of life’s tiny problems and forget about it.
mainline modeler was OK but I too only picked it up if it had articles of interest, I too agree Model Railroading was a super sub par publication, I don’t think I ever once purchased a single issue of that rag.
I agree that under the circumstances a class action suit would be a waste of time. If you really wanted to get a few dollars back on your unfilled subscription, you could always file a claim with the Bankruptcy Court. But I think that too would be a lot of effort for hardly anything in return.
Mainline Modeler (MM) always seemed like an oxymoron publication to me. The implication is they cover class 1 railroads and the corresponding larger layouts needed to faithfully model said railroads. But then they fill the magazine with meticulous scratchbuilding articles … you aren’t going to get much of a layout built following that approach.
Granted, MM’s article presentation was often some of the best looking in the business, with crisp, clear, and well lit photos and easy-to-read text. But MM’s niche always seemed to be a puzzle to me. If modeling a class 1 railroad was the goal, then to do it well will take something more than a 4x8, and you will never get very far with a larger layout if you scratchbuild everything. Kitbashing and close-enough look-alikes are called for to save time – and MM never seemed to be about how to save time in modeling.
Ah well, the print publication world is changing for sure. The internet is turning the information disemination business on its head. Many are turning to the internet as source 1 for their information, and on the web people expect that information to largely be free. Tough to run a business on free … [swg]
What do people think of Model Railroad News? It never seems to get mentioned when the subject of pubs comes up. But it’s been around since 1995 and I recently got their free sample issues. Seemed pretty good to me, if a little heavy on product reviews. I’m considering adding it to my subscriptions (MR, MRC, Classic Trains are the current ones).
In bankruptcy, people that are owed money are split into three classes: secured creditors, unsecured creditors and trade creditors. Secured creditors are generally banks that lent the Company money and have a lien on the assets (like your mortgage company has a lien on your house). The secured creditors by and large control the bankruptcy process and decide what assets to sell and whether the business should be reorganized (Chapter 11 bankruptcy) or liquidated (Chapter 7 bankruptcy). Given their ability to control the outcome, the secured creditors are often the only people who see any money out of a bankruptcy proceeding. I’m not certain of this but my guess would be that subscribers would be trade creditors so that given the number of people in front of them, they are unlikely
Unless I’m mistaken, I believe Ed’s mention of a “Class Action Law Suit” referred to Nick Muff being unreimbursed for his contractual published work and not individual unfullfilled subscriptions. I can’t imagine the number of hours it takes to create one acurate scale drawing of a steam locomotive. This is not the first instance I’ve heard of someone having to chase down a mrr publication to receive payment for their work. Very sad, indeed.