After seeing the Many Moons thread I hae a suggestion for the magazine.
I think they should explore the possibility of each month having a centerfold with one or 2 old magazine covers. I would love to see some of the oldies. It would add something different for a change.
What do people here think the best covers were over the years?
The four that had my photos on them! July 1986, March 1987, March 1989, and June 1989! [:)]
I don’t know, but I would like to see bikini models!!! Ya just like the car magazines, only with model trains. Think about it, sex sells everything, might even get the younger guys in the hobby!
hehehehe
If I want to see old Model Railroader covers, or read the old mags for that matter, all I need do is walk across the room from this computer - On the book shelves are most every issue from about 1957 to today - and a few strays from even earlier. And a similar selection of Railroad Model Craftsman is down the hall in another room. I often just pull out older issues and read them.
Sheldon
Congrats. I just read your sig link. Great stuff. [tup]
One of the more interesting covers I have seen is from our club collection. The mid-1940s cover shows diamond crossings of two double track main lines. Today, we think of modeling in that era as somewhat crude or rough. This bit of trackwork looks as good as anything I have seen these days.
I recall one from the early 60’s showing (in black and white only) the MIDLAND CENTRAL layout.
Four or five grown men, the looks on their faces indicating they were having a BALL, running trains around an admirably detailed 20 X 24 layout. As a young teen, I remember thinking, having seen that: “Oh…this hobby isn’t just for kids.”
Would MRR get upset if we scanned and inserted our fave covers, on this thread? (Which is what I was hoping to SEE when I clikked on it.)
I’m sure someone would answer but there would be no info or articles so maybe it’s ok. If you do post they’d probably simply remove it and notify you but maybe an admin will chime in.
Back when Ed Ravenscroft’s article on cartop thumbtack ‘waybills’ appeared, there was a photo (Cover? Don’t recall) featuring two young ladies in bib overalls and engineer caps lifting a ‘waybill’ the size of a manhole cover off the (simulated, I presume) roof walk of a boxcar. They weren’t wearing shirts, but they weren’t showing anything either. Anyone into birdwatching would have seen more at the local beach or pool.
From some of the comments in subsequent RPO columns, you would have sworn that Hugh Hefner had taken over at Kalmbach, and that Playboy models were about to supplant the ones that run on rails.
The only thing that photo did for me was convince me that colorful thumbtacks would NOT be riding the walk-free rooves of my solid black freight cars. As an aside, does anyone still use that system?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with paper waybills in car cards)
Most train shows I go to have someone selling back issues. Personally, I have all but about 6 issues back through 1948, plus a few earlier ones. So I can easily look at any of them.
December of 1971 is one of my favorites http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=12&YR=1971
Enjoy
Paul
Although MR supposedly got a lot of grief for publishing too many John Allen articles, photos and covers, they were always my favorites. The last cover (A Memorial issue) had a picture of him with the G&D in the background and was the saddest. I am not sure of the date but I do have that issue at home along with most others going back to the Forties. I also have the very first John Allen cover issue which was the July 1946 issue and had an article by him on model RR photography. Peter Smith, Memphis
Yes I do use the Pin System and it is very popular around northwestern PA.
So yes it is still being use and more are changing over to it everyday!
When I have my 12 hour OPs sessions and have 30 new operators (some from Cleveland OH - New york state and Pittsburgh & down towards Harrisburg areas) I wanted something quick and easy to learn as I didn’t have all day to set and explain how my car cards worked different from everyone elses.
I have over 2000 sq ft of layout (3400 feet of track) and am running 7 independent shortlines (most of them are larger than most home layouts in of themselves plus the modeled Conrail Lowgrade line from Dubois to East Brady PA).
Moving 1000 cars during the 12 hours I can repin the cars on the fly and not have to worry if the cars and cards match (the card is already on the car) and keep everyone operating.
As for looks - what is that? AM I there to look at the trains setting still or OPERATIONS - I can see those sitting in the glass showcases over at our CLUB anytime I want!
And as we all know watching trains is nothing more than roundy-round 
BOB H - Clarion PA
My favorite MR Cover, August 1970. Was on the shelf in the short lived LHS in my home town of Durant the first time I went in the store. It was a striking photograph.
Mark Gosdin
The only place I ever saw that picture was at the start of a chapter of How to Operate Your Model Railroad by Bruce Chubb. The picture was not racy at all, and the girls appeared to be wearing uniforms used by waitresses at the old Victoria Station restaurant chain. I don’t recall running across any controversy about the picture in my old back issues.
The picture is mentioned in an 1981 interview with Ed Ravenscroft, and he said he got a laugh out of it.
I do recall some letters from the 1950s complaining about some of the images that appeared in some of the ads. (Tru Scale’s especially.) And I don’t recall any controversy about the strippers who appeared in the ads for Fleischmann that appeared in the back covers in the late 1950s - early 1960s.
(OTOH, there was a cute blonde in bib overall shorts who appeared in an article in the 1980s. The author had about five pictures of the young lady to demonstrate lighting effects.)
In my collection of ancient hobby mags, I have a copy of Model Airplane News from 1963
Those ads got MR temporarily banned from the Canadian postal system, they being classifying by them as a form of socially in appropriate (pornographic?) material, as I recall. If you check issues from that period you’ll find an abrupt cessation of such ads (some of which included Bell Starr, I believe) when this incident occurred.
Similarly, does anyone remember the product ads featuring the loco powered by a cartoon guy on a treadmill? The loco’s speed was determined by a rotating stage in front of him on which appeared an ugly, a pretty or a beautiful girl, used a speed incentives (the ugly girl was used for running in reverse direction!). I wonder just how today’s feminists would react to such ads?
CNJ831
The quality of reproduction of some of the early color covers could leave something to be desired. If they still have the original transparencies there are a number of color shots that could be rerun even if we have the originals, with better color and detail. Some of the Ben King color shots come to mind.
Dave Nelson
Sounds like the early days were mor interesting for sure. Has anyone determined if posting pics of the covers is ok here? I see one was posted and is still up as of now [:)]
Those were the Tru Scale ads. They really did push the envelope for the time. In a way, those Tru Scale ads were a lot racier than the ads with the strippers, who were always fully clothed.
I hadn’t heard about the issue with Canadian Post, but for the time, I wouldn’t be surprised.
There were actually a few photographers who published in Railroad magazine, who made a point of including pretty girls in their pix of trains. One guy wrote in he even approached nearby high schools to recruit models…
If they approached a high school these days they’d be arrested. [
] It would have to be a college.
Lately, I’ve had too much time on my hands, and I’ve been looking at my collection of MR going back to about 1947 or so. A lot of the covers from before 1965 or so are probably not that great. There seem to be too many variations on a guy in an engineer’s cap poking a screwdriver at an object on the layout. In one case at least, a photo was “flipped” so that the subject’s head would not be covered by the title block.
I would say the best covers came from the early 1970s. Most of these were pure pictures, and text was mostly in blocks beside the photos. There were also some attempts at artistry (like the fish-eye photo of Ed Ravenscroft’s layout that was on a cover in the very early 1970s.)