Rene, one of the most trustworthy sources there, has confirmed that the forums will be retained, and upgraded.
Praise be, and thanks to all concerned in making the decision.
Thatās great news! Once the forums are updated Iāll start hanging around more again.
As we all should know, what is said prior to the new owners and what is done after the new owners may or may not resemble each other.
Actually, there is an example of two railfan magazines combining. Back in the late '70s or in the '80s, Railfan bought Railroad magazine and combined them intoā¦Railfan and Railroad.
Wow !
Just came across this forum topic, sorry about the delay.
Just wanted to make a couple of points:
- The railfan books and mags in Japan are fantastic! I brought back quite a few even though I canāt read the text. Great pictures of rail equipment on great quality paper. Great photography and printing.
- I would expect Firecrown to put their influence into the look of the Kalmbach mags. I remember Garden Railways was an independent magazine, and when Kalmbach purchased it, the cover art and layout took on a decidedly Kalmbach look. And the paper it was printed on got thinnerā¦
Paul
A ridiculous proposal from a Japanese modeler, part 4
What comes next after the integration of the five forums
Itās been two months since I started using the new Trains forum system. At first it was trial and error, but I quickly got used to uploading images and videos. There are no restrictions, so itās really easy. The rating system is a bit cumbersome, so I usually access it on a tablet and only sit in front of my computer when I want to post.
And what I find comfortable is that there are no more barriers between forums.
I was originally in the Model Railroader forum, but I often comment on Classic Toy Trains and Garden Railways, and I also frequently go to Trains and Classic Trains. I wonder if the thread titles are posted by AI, because they show exactly what I like. So I can gain knowledge that is not limited to a specific field, and I can also show my experience, so Iām having a really good time.
The system without barriers between fields was started by the MRH forum a while ago. However, the Trains forum covers a very wide range of subjects, so I think it is working very well. According to the managementās comments, the number of participants and accesses has increased significantly, so this may be the effect.
By the way, while I was commenting on this other thread, I suddenly realized something. It used to be ātako-tsuboā. In Japanese, there is a metaphor that says āOctopus (tako) does not want to get out when it gets into a deep pot (tsubo).ā It is equivalent to the English expressions āform silosā and āecho chamber.ā
So I thought. How about applying this method to the magazines itself?
There is talk of Garden Railways magazine being relaunched (the thread). Isnāt this going backwards? Isnāt it the policy learned from the forum system to consolidate at least the model-related MR, CTT, and GR magazines into one magazine?
Of course, If they are integrated into one, the cost would go up. As I mentioned in Part 1, if we improve the paper quality, the price will go up even more.
But how much do you spend on models? Compared to that, itās not a huge amount of money.
Please give it some consideration.
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That and the ease of posting photos are the two best features of the Firecrown forum, IMHO.
Rich
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It does have to be said ā noted in passing ā that I had no trouble using the old
forum index pageā to jump cleanly between forums when reading, and the āoldā format was easier for tired myopic eyes to read and follow.
The inline images alone are worth the price of āconversionā, though. It should be recognized that the old software had the capability, but Kalmbach chose (probably out of a perception of liability) not to host images directly.
But I think the best feature of the new software is that it is enthusiastically and effectively supported ā both by Nick, with the tech, and by champoining by upper management.
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Its a good suggestion and maybe something worth considering. We are doing that in our aviation titles - i.e. consolidating some of the really small titles into FLYING, so we can see where it goes.
We have plans for Garden Railways, which is tied to our relaunch of EnterTRAINment Junction, we are calling the Motion Museum.
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I also agree that improving the quality of the print magazine is important. It is something we are planning in the 2nd half.
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Well Iām kinda new here I like seeing peoples post on their train stuff! But I Canāt load my Videos? Why
Finally, something we can agree on.
+1
Regards, Chris
Garden Railways was a spin-off from Model Railroader a few decades ago, when garden railroads began getting popular. Rolling it back into MR wouldnāt bother me in the least, as long as the volume of garden railroading content doesnāt swamp the scale model content of the magazine.
Same sort of thing goes for Classic Toy Trains. Spun off from MR years ago.
If these offshoots are rolled back into MR, I expect the page count of MR to expand appropriately. In other words, as long as Firecrown doesnāt reduce the scale content Iām fine with consolidating. In fact Iād encourage it. Splitting off those āspecialā modeling niches diminished MR in some tangible ways.
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Ummmm, nope. I donāt remember seeing those topics in MR, except maybe very rarely, and Iāve been getting the magazine since 1975.
I have no interest in them. If I did Iād subscribe to those publications. So, if things get combined Iām no longer a MR subscriber.
Ummmm, yup.
MR carried articles about garden railroads before the spin-off Garden Railroading magazine was launched in December 1984. One example was the Lake George & Boulder railroad of Charles Small, published in 1972. There was a story of an outdoor HO railroad years before that. There were never a whole lot of garden railroading articles in MR, but when garden railroading began to gain in popularity Kalmbach tried to capitalize on it with the new magazine.
Classic Toy Trains came out in late 1987. In the early years MR had a lot of what is now considered āToy Trainā articles (three-rail O gauge, mostly). As two rail and new smaller scales took over the āscaleā model railroading world, MR published less and less of the 3-rail stuff, until there was essentially none left in the magazine. Hereās a link showing that Kalmbach launched Classic Toy Trains to cover an otherwise all-but-ignored (by-the-print-publishers) group: From the archives: The birth of Classic Toy Trains' magazine - Trains
Articles werenāt frequent for these niches, but they were totally absent after the spin-offs launched. I have no real interest in N Scale and T-Track modules, but Iām not going to drop my subscription because MR covers them.
Thereās covering and thereās covering. Iām not a fan of N scale or T-track either.
But the original statement concerned folding garden railroads and toy trains into MR. I really donāt see the current magazine expanding 3X to add all that. So that would mean that what I do enjoy reading about would be greatly diluted
And then there would be 2X or 3X the number of people complaining that there wasnāt enough about what they wanted to read.
Lastly, I donāt see the staff increasing 3X to cover all the bases. I sort of believe that the primary interests of the current staff of each of the different publications reflects what gets published. So if the MR staff gets diluted (infected?) with people with the other interests, then even less of what I enjoy gets published.
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Iām completely with you on that point. While I would enjoy the occasional toy train or garden railroad stories, if they come at the expense of the already-too-minimal current content, I would be dropping my subscription as well.
But for now Iāll give them the benefit of the doubt in rolling these all back together. If done right it will enhance the magazine, in my opinion.
Has Firecrown indicated that it is considering the merger of MR, CTT and GR into one magazine?
It is one thing to integrate the 5 topics into one forum where the content is still separate. It is quite another to integrate three completely different modeling concepts into one magazine. You get a little of everything and not much of anything. It sounds like a bad idea, but I have to question whether Firecrown is even considering such a move.
Rich
A ridiculous proposal from a Japanese modeler, part 5
Warning: This magazine could dramatically change your life
When I was young, I was a patriotic nationalist. So I loved only models that were unique to Japan. They had a unique ālookā of our country. Yes, they were rooted in our culture and fit our tastes. I was familiar with them on a daily basis and knew their history well. I had mountains of materials, and products were abundantly distributed.
On the other hand, what about North American and European models? They are immediately distinguishable from Japanese ones. They are, so to speak, different. I couldnāt help but wonder why Japanese magazines published them. If I could, I would have cut out those pages and thrown them away.
Under such circumstances, in 1993, I visited the United States for the first time. It was for 13 days. And I encountered P40, No. 801 at Union Station in Washington DC.
I casually submitted some photos of it to a magazine, and it was featured widely as a state-of-the-art locomotive. It was the first introduction to Japan. Itās beginnerās luck. And Iāve been obsessed with North American models for over 30 years now.
In the process, I went through all the Japanese magazines I had stored for decades. I found tons of articles that I had never been interested in, and it was a treasure trove. I was really glad I didnāt throw them away. I also made an index of all the articles. The glossary I compiled for fans contains over 3000 words.
What I want to say is that even if an article is not good for you now, it is not a waste. You may need the contents of it someday in your long life. Thatās what Iām trying to say.
As I said before, a limited diet is harmful to your health and does not contribute to the growth of the parts of your body you want. Balance is important.
I think that āsiloizationā has many problems, such as not being able to benefit from the ideas of others and being prone to going in the wrong direction. And, interacting with people with different knowledge and experiences is just as fun as talking with friends of the same kind.
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