I just received an e-mail from Model Railroad news, also recieved the Dec issue today.
The e-mail from Model Railroad news indicates that they are closing shop immediately. Too bad, I enjoyed their magazine.
The new Selkirk was the subject of this issue.
Nuts! I really liked that magazine, I’ve been a subscriber for the past several years. I’m really sorry to hear that. Was there any reason given? I haven’t gotten an e-mail from them.
Tom
Here is the link to the story.
Yes this is a bit of a suprise,I also have had no word from them,been a subscriber since they reformated the magazine…what a shame.
I have been a subscriber for many years and am sorry to see them go.
I always appreciated their coverage of S scale and the regular monthly column S Curves
I guess it’s just too easy to get news off the Internet. So they join a number of other hobby magazines that have closed up shop.
Paul
I have never been a subscriber to this particular magazine and, quite frankly, I have never even read a single issue, so i cannot begin to appreciate the loss that subscribers must feel. It is one thing for a subscriber of any magazine to cancel a subscription, but it is quite another to receive news from a publisher that the magazine is being discontinued.
In the past few months, I have cancelled subscriptions to one of my two golf magazines, a tropical fish magazine, a computer magazine and a consumer reports magazine. I suppose that my reasons for doing so are typical. One, while I can afford the subcriptions, I am looking for ways to cut my expenses in this continuing tough economy. Two, I can get the same information on the Internet when I want it rather than waiting until a magazine decides to print it.
Rich
The things I liked most about Model Railroad News magazine was their coverage of all the scales, because they didn’t have a dedicated sister publication to support, and their unbiased reviews of products. They didn’t sugar-coat a review just to please a big advertiser like some of the other hobby publications. If a product was no good, they said so.
I recall reading a “Letter to the Editor” threatening to cancel a subscription if they did not change their policies. Their response was that they did not yield to threats or blackmail, and were more than happy to lose such a subscriber. They told it like it is and didn’t hold back.
They will be missed.
Is this the magazine which was published in what I’d call a news paper format? I used to see something more like a small newspaper publication in hobby shops I’d visit, which was a combination of articles and adveritisments but I never pursued or even asked if I could subscribe to it. The website for MRN looked quite good and it looks more magzine like on what I saw there. Guess I’ll never know it now that they are closing shop.
I also guess this is how things are going - more and more print media is becoming economically unpopular or unviable. I suppose investors look at it as an antiquated form off media and are reluctant to back such ventures. However, I also wonder if eventually we will see a back lash against such things as reading stuff on little Ipods and kindles some day. I don’t believe magazines and print media will ever return to it’s former popularity, but there may be yet a niche market for a few of them. I do own an Ipod Touch but the glamour wore off after a while and its too small for me to really enjoy using it.
Yes, that’s the one. When they started out they were a freebie handed out at hobby shops and were a newspaper sized publication. In later years they became a full-color, slick-paper, magazine format just like Model Railroader and the others. Even so, their subscription rates were much less than the others.
MRN was just that, news, no real modeling articles, just what’s been produced lately, only with the internet, it was two months old by the time it went to press. Except for at the grade crossing it didn’t really have much to offer. mh