I am getting tired of this magazine featuring all these layouts that have relation to another contibutor of the magazine over and over again. We never get the oppotunity to see new layouts by REGULAR people like you and myself for example. If you read the articles of these layouts these people always refer to another person they know who has done many articles in this magazine. This magazine is a who you know magazine. If you do not know anyone then you will not be featured. And every layout is a huge layout, there are very few medium size layouts like 15’x20’ and similar. If you have a basement bigger than most peoples homes then you will have a better chance to get posted, oh plus you still have to have those connections. I know this is the MR forum and people will defend this statement tooth and nail but it is fact proven monthly in the articles. I am not saying I do not like the magazine but it is getting tiring seeing these pratices. Then on top of it off the magazine is cluttered with the majority of Steam to transitional era layouts. Where are all the modern railroaders? Not in the circle of people? Does anyone model the modern era? well we never get to see them in MR mag. If the editors like you personally then you can get in and if not Sorry sir. Lastly We never see young model railroaders featured! It is like a 50+ overweight balding club. What do you guys think of this? I wonder if annyone will have the guts to agree fully or partially? Lets hear it.
I am sure you will get a few replies to this! I too used to think your way (at least as far as layout size goes, had never noticed about the authors) but have learned it is not worth fussing over.
I just try to look at each article and get what I can out of it. I do not see many layouts in my size (13x9) but that is OK, I can just cherry pick the parts that would work for me.
If I get some time and something I think is worth it for others to read about, I will do an article and see what happens. But that may be a while yet!
Model Railroader can only publish the articles that they receive. If you want to see small and medium-sized layouts, write the articles!
Notice that the editorial staff of MR generally does NOT write the layout articles. They may have encouraged their writing (by visiting the layout) but the articles are generally written by US.
Of course, to write about a layout requires VERY good photography, so you’ll need to have the skills to both write and take quality photos (digital or film).
I for one dont look at about what is actually in the magazine from month to month. It can be full bore Earth Orbit on the Moon-base railroading in the future and I will still purchase the issue. Or it can be the most dusty tumbleweed filled (Or eastern pine cone… take your pick) 1840’s about the early days of railroading and I will still buy it.
MR is consistent. They have always been consistent. Not like some other magazines where glossy 4 page center… ah… BIG stuff spills out with very heavy writing on why everyone should have this widget.
I am a bit of a worm working my way through the occasional Computer PC Magazine from time to time. They are filled with obese garbage about the latest and greatest hardware written by people whose palms are slippery and eyes wet with tears of either anger or joy while they are creating the magazine.
Those materials are generated by editors pushing stuff downstream to the reader who is a potential customer.
Thank god MR is rather stable in that department. Sometimes it is dry reading or sometimes it has stuff in it that I dont care about. But read anyway.
MR is Reader-generated content with enough advertising to support the hobby literally either through Magazine revenue or through readers who see a ad for benchwork and say “AHA!” and off they go to buy it.
I happen to like steam. The recent article by Andy about steam functions on a locomotive is like sitting down to a meal of meat and taters wif gravy and sour cream topped off by schnapps. WHAT A READ!
I recognize that desiel-heads would not care less about that article and yawn wide as they hunt for the next big Modern Desiel article.
As a parting shot I say that the new Desiels are very nice and worth a look. But tonnage is about the same per train and they dont go much faster than they did 10 years ago on track that may have been deferred maintained. A certain amount of horses is good, beyond that it becomes tree-hugging green stuff for the env
…and how much pre-1900 content does one typically find in Modelrailroader? Maybe one article every 4-6 years?
Just do a check on the articles and photographers in most of MRs and their other annual issues (GMR & others)- you will see a good many of them are bylined and photographed by Lou Sassi, Paul Dolkos and maybe a few others. Most of the time it is others’ layouts, quite often it is their own work on their layouts. They are even featured regularly in the “Trackside Photos” section, which at one time was used for photos of readers’ layouts. These guys aren’t MR staffers, but freelancers who get assigmnents from MR to go out and photograph specific layouts for the magazine.
That’s just the way it is. These guys can produce high quality photos and writing and that’s only what MR wants to feature.
This whole thing seems extremely obvious. MR will publish a good article if they get it. Why wouldn’t they? Maybe if they’ve done something extremely similar recently they wouldn’t.
Probably the reason there are so many repeat providers is because those are the people who keep submitting good stuff!
Well, I’m over fifty and overweight and balding, but I don’t think I’m part of the ‘club’ at all, since at least on this forum, I keep hearing from younger model railroaders who have some really fine insight into the hobby.
I think that MR publishes a lot of articles from experienced model railroaders, and not as a put-down, but to show what can be accomplished in the hobby from trial and error. I’m sure that a lot of the layouts we’ve seen in the magazine didn’t just spring full-blown out of someone’s head, they had to do a lot of planning, and re-planning, and possibly abandoning the original concept as they went along, gaining experience from both their undertakings and observing other layouts in the magazine as well.
I think if you want to see more variety, then it’s time to submit your own articles–and I say this to a LOT of younger modelers–don’t by shy about it. Give it a try. If you get rejected the first time, try and try again. Most authors have a wall full of rejection slips before they get their first novel accepted, it’s the same thing here. You just keep plugging, and eventually, someone will say, “Hey, this is GOOD!”
Frankly, I’d LOVE to see articles about some of the photos I’ve seen in our weekend photo shoots from younger modelers–I’ve been really IMPRESSED by the way you guys keep growing and growing in the hobby. Good God, YOU’RE the ones who chomp into DCC operation as if it were just shrugging your shoulders, while someone like myself is scared to DEATH of it, and satisfied by running maybe two trains maximum on my big DC Yuba River Sub!
So, guys–GET WITH IT! Submit your articles, and if it gets rejected the first time, re-do it and submit it again. And again, until you open up that MR and see yourself in glossy color explaining HOW YOU DID IT.
Hey, this over fifty, balding overweight m
Wow, has it been two weeks already? (Since this topic was cussed and discussed.)[xx(]
Mike Tennent
[(-D] Well, probably more like a couple of long months now, but I getcha…I really do.
Any organization or magazine has a core of people that can be depended on to submit and furnish articles for publication. If they depended on most of us, we would not have anything to read the first of every month.
Face it, most of us do not have layouts that would ever be featured in the MR. We look at the magazine and hope to visit a layout someday that looks as good as the one in the MR. The money and time some of the featured layouts take to build is beyond most of us for sure. Why not enjoy what is our monthly treat, just seeing the great looking model train layouts.
If you have a modern layout, get pictures, write an article and submit it for consideration.
Personally, I enjoy the “mega sized” basement layout articles. I know I’ll never have the time or money (plus the basement) to build such a layout so I get enjoyment from reading about these “super” layouts.
Neither the Pelle Soeberg or Bob Smaus layouts, which have been featured alot (and both are … seasoned fellows, shall we say) are large layouts. The fact is it is really hard to take impressive pictures on a small layout. Not impossible, just really hard. At least with a large layout you have some scope and distance going for you.
But yeah I guess it is true that most attention-getting layouts are layouts that, well, get attention, and size (and expense) can sure be a factor in that.
Let’s not forget all the really huge but unfinished or poorly thought-through layouts that do NOT get mentioned or written up in MR or RMC or Scale Rails. Go to enough regional or national conventions and you’ll have seen a raft load of such layouts.
By all means let’s see more stuff by younger modelers. Young Jeff Eggert for example, takes prize after prize at Chicago & North Western Historical Society meets. His dad Dennis is also an excellent modeler but Jeff is terrific and I do not know if he has ever been featured in MR. Here are some shots of his work
http://www.pbase.com/ehyjek/image/51523833
http://www.pbase.com/ehyjek/image/51525251
Dave Nelson
I actually inquired about submitting an article I plan to be writing about new track-laying tips for N scalers. (Wish me luck!) They don’t accept articles via email.
If you want to read MR’s article and photo guidelines, read these sites:
http://www.modelrailroader.com/mrr/default.aspx?c=a&id=366
http://www.kalmbach.com/kpc/objects/pdf/digital-image-submission.pdf
I actually I disagree, aboutif you send a great article in they publish it. Back in 2000 When I started this hobby full throttle. I wrote an article on how the internet is helping the hobby. IN other words Forums, onlinenewsletters, model railroad only sites etc. Well after about 5 weeks I get my letter back in the mail with a thank you but this section of the magazine is being discontinued and we dont need your article. well not to long after that one of the staffers came out and did the same exact article not word for word but it was the same idea. Till this day I wonder why I buy the dang magazine it could be the pretty pictures or the once in a blue moon article that helps me out with a problem I have. But I still get ticked thinking of that article.
I guess it’s the MRR equivalent of seeing pictures of a supermodel in a magazine versus an ordinary-looking woman…
owners of really large model railroads tend to know a lot of other model railroaders , because it takes a lot of model railroaders to operate a really big model railroad . since the number of people who are really good at operating large model railroads is a fairly small percentage of the people in our hobby it’s not too surprising that many of them know each other , and also not surprising that members of the MR staff are in that group . so they get to know the owners of the really large layouts and they talk them into writing articles for the magazine . so we get article on large layouts
members of the MR staff go to a lot of model railroad shows and conventions . owners of large model railroads open up their layout for tours and the MR people see a cool layout and ask the owner to write an article . so we get articles on large layouts
if you see several articles by the same author it’s because 1) the editors like the way they write (and the readers probably do too) 2) if one of the editors , realizing they’re short an article for next month’s issue , calls this author up and asks for an article he can probably whip one up in time to meet the magazine’s deadline . and we get another article on large layouts
see , it’s all very simple [:)]
And the authors seem to go in waves. It may be Pelle Soeberg and Bob Smaus now but it was Ian Rice a few years ago, and Olsen, Furlow, Posey et al before.
I like to see the progress made by these modlers and do not mind reading their articles on a regular basis, they almost become like old friends. I get sad when they do not have articles any more.
So what’s the purpose of this rant, anyway? Just to stir everyone up? Based on this post, you seem to be either a troll, or maybe just a whiner. I hope I’m wrong.
If you don’t like the way MR does things, don’t read their magazine. Problem solved.
MR as well as RMC has always had their “movers and shakers” back in the 80s it was Allen McClellan,Bruce Chubb and Tony Koester that gleam the pages of MR and RMC. A super modeler by the name of Jim Six was also a regular…
I have no qualms about seeing the work of the