I miss the little spot-color icons, and the themed department titles. Calling the editorial “At the Throttle,” with an engraving of a steam locomotive throttle. Calling the product reviews column “Trade Topics,” with an engraving of (if I remember right) a model locomotive hooked up to an oscilloscope. Calling the technical column “MR Clinic,” with a freight truck hanging from a crane. And so forth.
I also miss “Bull Session,” with “Spike Trail,” “Boomer Pete,” “Motorman Mike,” and “Slim Gage.” Are any of the original guys behind those pseudonyms still alive? I used to know who was who, but I’ve long forgotten.
Well, James, things have changed. We’ve missed you, too, even though you and I have never met. Welcome back, and welcome to the 21st Century. (Yeah, I miss Walter Cronkite, too. Now, The 20th Century belongs on the History Channel.)
The good news is that MR is still alive, and the hobby is still kickin’ it, as Spacemouse would say. I was away for 40 years myself, and a lot has changed in 2 Rip Van Winkle sleep periods. After a short mourning period for my Athearn rubber-band-drive engines, I somehow adjusted to DCC-equipped geeps, and a sound-equipped RS-3 that would have amazed everyone the last time my trains were out of their boxes, when men were men, the sheep were scared, and LBJ was in the White House.
Just look at what MR is doing for us all here, completely free of charge. Sure, Trackside Photos is great, but given a choice, I’d pick Weekend Photo Fun every time.
And best of all, when I tire of the modern world, I can still walk up to the trainroom, flip on the power strip, and immerse myself in 1967 for a while.
Trackside Photos used to be a way for MR readers to show off their work in one photo. Most of the photos these days are by MR photographers Lou Sassi and Paul Dolkos. This month has two by Lou and one by MR staffer Jim Hediger. Wonder if they don’t receive any from the public that are usable or they’ve already paid for the photographers’ photos so they use them?
I miss the drawings of various locos, rolling stock, and buildings that regularly graced the pages of MR. These were rarely of something I was personally going to model, but I remember looking them over closely to figure out how things went together, how it worked, and where people and freight would go in each one.
I suspect the growing lack of attention span brought on by TV and the internet – and I’m not just talking about kids here – is largely responsible for this.
I realize the fading away of the kind of scratchbuilding that made these popular in the past has something to do with it. But then again, what’s to build if there’s no drawings? Chicken or egg? You decide.
I’ll just mention the Silver Plate Road cartoons. I remember one in particular of the boys in a swanky restaurant and wanting to draw out a new layout. They didn’t have paper and pencil so used spaghetti and did the layout on the table. I miss alot more but I’d really be dating myself.
Trackside Photos at one time-- sometime over 20 years ago, maybe more-- used to carry single photos of cars, locomotives, structures-- things that might not be worth an entire article but were interesting to see. Now it seems Trackside Photos almost NEVER runs ANYTHING BUT layout photos.
I like the layout photos, but they never have anything else??? I wonder about some projects I have built that would be fun to show, but they are not worth a long article necessarily. I don’t bother photographing them to MR specs (film transparency, takes a week to develop, takes another week to have a snapshot/print made if you want one, and I don’t have a way to scan transparency for internet or other computer use…)
I miss along the line… was the first thing I looked at in MR when it came in the mail, even if it was the very last page in the mag [#ditto] to what most have already said so far.
I just got back “into things” a few years ago, & at that time picked up my 1st MR in about 10 years. At that point (1995) they were talking about the significance of the growing internet, & their introduction of their email addy & website. I do like MR, as I always have, & a lot of good changes for the better have come. But a lot of things have gone by the wayside, which I expected as time moves on. Some good ones were mentioned previously, but my faves were “Paint Shop” hosted by the GREAT Jim Hediger (yeah I love his work & layouts) also Student Fare hosted by Andy Anderson (I had a very brief mention sometime in 1980 at the age of 14, & wouldn’t you know it? the issue has gone missing.) Another I remember & thought was neat was “It Ain’t Prototypical.” I wouldn’t mind seeing these come back even on an irregular basis.
There really should have been drawings of the SD20 to go with the kitbash article in the latest issue of MR. They have done this too often so that even when they do run an article on how to build or kitbash a car, locomotive, or structure, there are no drawings. In the absence of drawings there should at least be a small gallery of prototype photos. In this case there were not even that many photos of the model.
On the plus side at least the product reviews were not solely of locomotives as if that is the only product any of us purchase. That has been a pet peeve of mine for some time. Even a new detail part might deserve a review from time to time.
Yeah, I remember talking with DeWitt Clinton, about how neat it would be to have an invention that could capture images, so we could put pictures of his locomotive into magazines…