maybe im in the pastbut I sure dont get the same kick out of this Mag. Go to bed and prop up the pillows and one hour and a half later—THATS IT !!! wHERE ARE ALL THOSE ARTICLES THAT YOU COULD NOT PUT DOWN? ie look back when it took 6 months to cover a topic.Seems to me it is becomming another glossy mag. relying on all pretty pictures to encourage new modellers who are going to find a lot of the basics of the bestest hobby hard to circumnavigate!!! I know I’m going to get flack but that is the way I see things now. Not everybody has a fat wallet.
Like the rest of the world, MR has changed quite a lot over the decades. The most noticeable change is sheer volume - 20 years ago, each copy had about double the amount of pages. Granted, there was a lot of advertising, which seems to be unnecessary in the days of internet, but the quality of reports and articles has changed dramatically. What I really liked in the past where those numerous how-to articles, which helped me to develop my skills. There are not all gone, but appear less and less - at least in my perception. The good old “Paint Shop” seems to be gone forever.
A mag like MR lives off the contributions it gets - may be here is the lever to turn things!
Here we go again. The past was Paradise, the present is the 9th circle of Hell.
Actually, things were much, much better 100 years ago, before there was any commercial support for the hobby or any MR. It was an idyllic time when everything had to be built from scratch. What made it even better is that not only did you have to figure it out for yourself, there was no hobby press. let alone Internet, to allow experience to be shared.
OTOH, now that I think about it, things weren’t all that good 100 years ago if we compare that time to the way things were before the invention of agriculture. Idle hands are the Devil’s playground and we should all be out trying to scare up our next meal rather than complaining about non-essentials.
We occasionally get turkeys walking through our backyard. I thought I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. Breakfast!
Andre - who walked 10 miles to school through 10 feet of snow uphill. Both ways.
I totally understand what you mean that the mag has deteriorated a bit for the last 15 years or so. The biggest problem, as I think, is that almost all articles are written with the newbie in mind! We had this problem with a mag here as well, and the only way to alter it was genuine debate with the editors.
There has to be something for everyone in a way, and to get the material to do that, there have to be more “headhunting” of writers.
I have written a few articles now that are ready for submitting as soon as the photos are finished.
That may be more of an issue in some circles—those articles are really inspirational in terms of getting people thinking about how to do things with a little less of the Dream It-Plan It-Buy It thing going on.
Maybe call the column–if one gets written up----Money Savers.
While it’s not the great technical journal it was during the Westcott years, or even the buffet it was under Russ Larson, I’d have to say that the current crew is doing a good job of engaging model builders, do-it-yourselfers, electronics guys, operators and empire builders. They have a smaller format because they have to due to a reduced number of large advertisers. Think about it. You no longer have multi-page spreads from the various mail order houses, they only need a business card ad that directs readers to their website now. The major manufacturers, like Life Like, Athearn and Model Die Casting, have been consolidated into the stables of distributors, so there’s fewer advertising dollars there, too. Fewer ads equals fewer pages of editorial.
Also, there are now specialty magazines (and websites) that cater to particular scales and other areas of interest, so MR can go deeper into things it’s better at, such as operations and electronics discussions, and leave the articles about building a particular N scale locomotive to the N scale mags.
I don’t think there’s a better magazine out there than MR for introducing people to the hobby, the project layouts are usually pretty interesting (The Beer Line series was brilliant… I would have loved to see this done side by side as an HO and an N scale project to show the comparative benefits of the two major scales. And nobody showcases home layouts better than MR.
I also agree that a “Money Savers” column would be a welcome addition, especially as many of us are trying to squeeze what little juice is left in our economic fruit…
There’s always going to be room for improvement, and there’s always going to be a segment of the readership that doesn’t get what it wants month in and month out. But overall, I think Neil, David, Cody and Dana et al are doing a pretty respectable job of highlighting the fun that is Model Railroading.
Suggestion 1: Some years ago Model Railroader (and Trains and for all I know, Kalmbach’s “Better Camping” magazine) sold back issues with the slogan “Every magazine is new until you’ve read it.” If the current version of the magazine isn’t giving you what you want or need, think about extending your collection backwards. My sense is that many articles back to around 1950 or so are still very useful, particularly all those wonderful Eric Stevens Dollar Model projects. Old MRs (and RMCs and the other model magazines) tend to be cheap and for a few bucks you can haul home tons (almost literally tons!) of reading.
Suggestion 2: Get in the habit of regularly re-reading entire volumes of your own back issues. I am constantly surprised by the articles I failed to notice the first time around (even though I swear to myself that I read the thing cover to cover), even from just a few years back.
Part of the reason is that your main interest is in whatever stage it is you are at. When you are building benchwork, it is benchwork articles that hold your particular interest. Then comes track planning articles. Then track laying articles. Then wiring then scenery and so on. Whatever it is we are doing now, if the magazine has articles on it, it seems wonderful. if it has articles mostly of interest to someone else, we are less impressed. My track plan is more or less compete – and thus track planning articles are of decreasing interest to me. Now that I face having to scratchbuild a layout full of structures, suddenly all those old EL Moore and Joe Kunzelmann articles are a lot more interesting to me than when the mags were new.
Which leads me to my observation: Maybe the fault, as Shakespeare pointed out, is not in our stars (i.e., the current version of MR) but in ourselves.
I think we’ve seen significant improvements in the magazine over the past year. There are articles about scratch-building now. A year ago, there was a lot of “buy this advertiser’s product and put it on your layout.” It was very newbie-oriented.
Take a look at the last few magazines. They inspire you to go out and bash a few models, both structures and locomotives. Much better than bashing the editors who are improving the content as we speak.
The magazine has changed because the hobby has changed. Depending on how far you want to go back, the emphasis was on scratchbuilding and later kitbuilding and kitbashing. Now there is so much RTR and ready built structures that the emphasis has changed. How-to articles deal more with things like electronics, layout planning, operations, weathering, scenery etc. These are the skills the modern modeler needs more so than how to build a loco from the ground up or how to hand lay a 6.5 turnout.
Just a few days ago I was sorting through my old modeling books and came across one I forgot I even owned. It was a collection from MR articles from the past, some over 50 years old. I did like the look and feel of it, especially the black and white photos and it was interesting to see where the hobby was as compared to where it is today. However, just because I can appreciate the way modelers built their layouts 50 years ago, that doesn’t mean I want to build my layout that way. I am much more interested in the best way to do things today.
I second that statement - the team has done a wonderful job in improving the mag! We all have to admit that this is a difficult job to do and we all should contribute to this process. Let´s feed the boys with good articles!
Change is the reason for all things to evolve. Wasn’t that pithy? Anyway, take an MR from 15 years back, the list of dealers in the back was about twice the size it is today. Hobby shops have died, or are dying as mail order took over. Maybe the list of contributors has shrunk a great deal, as we see a lot of the same few people being published over and over. Layouts get published and then are torn down to make room for a new one and by the time the article is published, the railroad no longer exists. I had that back in 1984 when MR ran an article on my then Mojave Western freelanced railroad. By the time it was published, the layout was demolished, new benchwork was going up and my Santa Fe in Oklahoma was in progress.
But I firmly believe in my old age dotage that a majority of people today do not read. They watch TV, video, computer screens, etc. I have some old 1940 era Model Builder magazines downstairs. They were very thin in number of pages and in content. But, I learned all about a layout down in New Orleans area called the Delta Lines, built in O gauge, and read all the article on building that layout from the magazines. I still remember it in my mind.
You can’t fight progress (depending on your definition), so live with it.
I bought my first issue of MR–and RMC also, for that matter–in June of 1962; I was immediately drawn to the hobby and I have remained drawn ever since. Not only have I collected every issue since that July, '62 date but all back issues to January, '59 and complete volumes–of MR–for '49, '53, and '54. I always look for full year offerings at the Silent Auction at the NMRA conventions I am able to attend. The production fabric has changed since those distant days but then again so have the editors . . . . . . . . . . and I, of course, have changed also. My interests have evolved and modified over the years and, as I suppose is true with most others, there are some facits of the hobby which I find more interesting than others. I may not give the magazine the same immediate attentio
I am not a subscriber any more, mostly because I find the content is too elementary for me and they focus too much on new products for my interests. I don’t fault them for that; they are targeting the magazine where they get the best sales (magazine sales and advertising sales). Even so, there are two things that would bring me back:
Editorials that closely resemble Linn Westcott’s At The Throttle columns. That was the first page I read every month in the '70s and it would be worth the cost of a subscrption to have such thought-provoking and insightful writing again.
and/or…
Deliver the magazine electronically and allow me to store articles as PDF files on my computer. Even though the content is somewhat elementary for me, I would buy it just to support this approach to distribution. I’d even buy electronic copies of back issues if the price was within what I could afford (It would be great if they would allow me to buy the whole collection of “At The Throttle” ar a reasonable price).
I find it interesting that the OP’s first post is to register a complaint against the very Mag/publisher that so generously put this Forum together! Ahhh, freedom of speech is a wonderful thing!!!
I’ve been playing with trains since the mid-'50s, and have been a reader/subscriber to MR since December, 1955. I have also been a long time reader/subscriber to RMC, Scale Rails, and the IC & ATSF societies, etc… My point is, I’ve been involved in the hobby for a long time.
Those major “how to” articles of the past were terrific - no question about it. But, the hobby was in a different place back then. Most modelers were “builders” of cars & structures and had that creative passion that went with it. Today, many folks buy ready made cars and structures and even “layouts in a box”. I am not saying that’s wrong, just stating the obvious.
With the retirement of the “war babies” and baby boomers, there is a lot more money to spend on the hobby - which in itself prompted the wonderful boom in stuff available to us. But along those lines, the hobby has to attract newbies, for us old folks will just not live forever. Soooo, I believe that prompts a lot of the “newbie articles” that we see today.
Of course MR (or any hobby type mag), tries to cater to all their potential audience - be it NMRA Master Modelers, folks like myself, the youngsters first attempts at model trains, and yes, even those “all thumbs” Dads (and Mom’s) that are putting together an MR for their children. IMHO, MR does a terrific job of it, and I applaud them for their efforts - and of course this Forum!
Maybe we could, if grudgingly, compliment him on actually exercising his “right of free speech”, even if it doesn’t really exist here? Personally, I am glad he has finally, at long last, found some reason to post. [8D]
I know that I have written this before, but there is a risk with letting it become a “Lifestyle” mag! You know the ones I mean, where there is only surface and nothing beneath.
I will however give MR the accolade it deserves regarding catering for the beginners, as that is a thing this hobby needs after all, but there have to be a limit to that as well. If there is only articles about “how to start with …”, some people that has come a bit further in the hobby will stop reading it.