Welcome to the new Digital Archives/All-Access Pass "book club." Book #1: the January '65 issue

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

As discussed here http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/243899/2716870.aspx#2716870

I have started a sort of book club format where each Monday I will announce the past issue of MR that we will read and comment on in that thread. I will start new threads for each issue we discuss in the “book club.”

The first issue is January 1965. We welcome comments and thoughts from anyone, whether they have the hard copy, the DVD, or have paid for the All Access Pass.

By the way as a first comment, the cover photo was taken by Paul Jansen, one of the really fine early photograhers of models, whose work often appeared in MR back in those days but who became so obscure that decades later MR admitted that it had not known whether he was alive or dead. Jansen would take some heat from time to time over the alleged over-weathering of his steam locomotives. The SP cab forward on this cover is definitely heavily weathered!

Over the week, read the issue and make whatever comments you please about the issue: the articles, product reviews, ads, cover: anything and everything is fair game.

Then next Monday we’ll start a new thread with a new issue. If there seems to be no interest eventually the idea will die, so I hope to see some comments.

Enjoy the December 1965 issue.

Dave Nelson

2

My first impression, from the cover is that it reveals things to us that 50 years later are still hot topics, weathering and Styrofoam scenery!

3

I decided to do a price comparison. In the magazine, there is an advertisement for an Athearn RTR F7 for $12.95. A dollar in 1965 is worth $7.47 today, making the equivalent cost for the locomotive in today’s money $96.74. A search of the current Athearn website has a new F7 retailing for $84.98. For what it is worth…

4

Great issue. Note brand new AHM/Rivarossi Heavyweights in Trade Topics.

And one my my favorite project layouts - not for the track plan, but for the great made up story to give it a history - the Ma and Pa. Set in PA Dutch country, right near me. The humor and whimsy in the background story for the railroad’s existence is in a great part missing from the railroad press of today - everyone’s so dang serious about everything. I mean - the Funfach Sperrholz region (literally, 5 layer plywood), Teufel Wasser, Wottalottawatta Pond (an old Indian phrase for “Boy, what a big pond”), Heimgemacht Sausage (“Our wurst is America’s best”). Just the same, the railroad GOES somewhere, and has a reason for being. It never really becomes a complete bowl of spaghetti, and the interesting thing is it is designed to grow in stages, but is operable at each stage.

Also interesting - the throttle design by David Pfyffe - that there my friends is pulse width modulation drive, maybe the first time it was presented in the hobby press? Article mentions some motors may buzz or hum - yes, because the whole thing uses a 50Hz pulse frequency. It probably wasn’t possible to go 25-30Khz with affordable components at the time.

–Randy

5

Thanks for your efforts in starting this thread, Dave. I think it will be fun and enlightening!

One thing that I’m amazed at is how many of our favorite “brand names” are still in existence! Just an off-the-cuff glance I saw:

Kadee

Walthers

Bowser

MRC

Athearn

Caboose Hobbies

Märklin

Dremel

Optivisor

Cal-Scale

Atlas and Con-Cor

and, I’m sure, a few I missed.

One of the highest honors I feel should go to Kadee for producing that famous #5 coupler (pg. 13) for over fifty years without any significant changes (or off-shoring which was a novel concept back in '65!) and it is STILL the modeler’s choice in couplers. I wonder what the production count is on just the #5 alone?

Looking forward to more comments on “the good old days”

Ed

6

The adds were interesting. Page 51 had the the infamous Lindberg SW 600 with rubber band / jackshaft drive. Tyco had a huge presence in the adds as this was before the Consolidated Foods era.

The Athearn F7 super power was shown with Gordon and Linn and a huge power supply complete with analog gauges, which I assume they used for testing engines for MR.

Lab scope traces for DC packs was unusual as you rarely see that. And the layout packed with track which was a switching puzzle was pretty neat.

7

OK, so what do I need to do? Subscribe to the on-line mag.? I’d like to join in on this.

Mike.

8

You need to purchase the All Access Pass. $4.95/mo and you can watch all the videos on MRVP and read every issue of MR from the very first to today. I guess that also gets you an “Add MR Digital” since the archive includes the most recent issue.

–Randy

9

Here is the link Randy has mentioned:

http://mrr.trains.com/archiveaccess

10

All right guys, thanks.

Mike

11

Back then, they were called “standard”, and lightweights were called “streamlined”. I can’t remember the term “heavyweight” being used before Walthers started producing them.

12

Therefore, today’s Model Railroader should be $3.75.

13

“Thirty Years of Service to the Hobby”

Time to run a contest for a catchier slogan, I think, although I have nothing against noble concepts such as “service to the hobby” which seems so quaint in terms of our “What’s in it for me?” society.

The Columbia Record Club’s 10th anniverssary offer takes up all of page 5. Talk about superseded technologies and marketing concepts! And it goes to show that ad space wasn’t only about model RR stuff. And who’s still with us? Peter and Paul, but not Mary. Joan Baez. 2 out of 4 Beatles. And the Smothers Brothers.

National Model RR Week was in January. Guess that was before the entire month of November as National Model RR Month?

Code 55 rail was offered by Robert D. Rands of St. Louis. Was this the beginning of what we know as Micro-Engineering?

TT offerings are scattered throughout, but seem to have had little long term impact.

A letter from Cornelius Hauck, Bob Richardson’s partner in setting up the Colorado RR Mueseum emphasizes that they have the oldest business car in Denver and maybe the entire country. Hauck and Bob are gone, but business car K is still at the museum for you pleasure.

Linn W. waxes poetic on the many benefits of O scale…seems many were feeling somewhat neglected versus all the goodies HO had, rather like N scalers do today. Maybe it’s because they can’t decide on a coupler? (page 50)

The poster child for spaghetti bowl layouts has to be Eugene Platt’s “The Mostest Track in the Leastest Space.”

The classic and unusually arranged Hanrahan “automatic” refrigerator car appears in a J. Harold Geissel plan.

The Dollar Model project series gets some marketing magic on page 41. Imagine how far a dollar can get you today…OK, nevermind.[;)]

And that is one clunky looking but likely long-lived Dremel hovering above it.

Frank Ellison confirms the role of art in model railroading with

14

My 1945 Pullman Progress brochure shows the car featured at the Century Of Progress in Chicago as the First Lightweight aluminum sleeping car and continues to refer to “lightweight” equipment that had followed. By extention, anything else was heavyweight.

Additionally, I have a 1956 Pullman Company Descriptive List Of Cars which is divided into Lightweight and Heavyweight cars so it does look like Pullman used the terminology in describing its own cars.

Ed

15

I noticed something in the article on working with styrofoam. They showed how to use a soldering iron to shape the foam. I can imagine what that smelled like, to say nothing of breathing it all in!

The article on “The Mostest Track” had a very interesting and ‘to the point’ introduction. It noted that the reviewer’s first reaction to the track plan was that the layout looks like a toy train set up. That was my first impression too, as I’m sure it was for many others. The fact that the layout provided several hours of operating enjoyment came as a suprise. It also proved that track planning for operation is important. Hey - didn’t somebody write a book about that?!?[swg]

The advertised prices always amuse me, although when you do the conversion most of them aren’t too far off what we pay today. But heck, getting a brass steamer kit for $19.99 ($150.00 today) would still be a bargain.

Dave

16

Thanks, Ed. Sometimes I amaze myself with how much I don’t know.

17

Yup, that’s Micro-Engineering, originally (and if you look in later magazines) called Rail Craft.

The slogan changed quite frequently in those days. Just 5 years early, it read “Over a quarter century of service”. “Model railroading is fun” lasted a long time. We’ve had some changes in recent years as well - for a while it was “Dream it, Plan it, Build it”. Now there isn’t even one at all.

Interesting the Ellison repront - I had originally hoped we would go back even further, and the Jan 55 issue didn’t look too great so I grabbed Jan 1950, and there is an Ellison article in there about designing yards. It starts off in a way that makes you think yeah, they did things differently and this is nothing like modern model railroad yard design. Then you keep reading and see the examples and it’s more like, wait a minute, this is pretty much the same, he just doesn’t use all the exact same terminology.

–Randy

18

Most enjoyable to look through. I enjoyed seeing my old Ulrich track cleaning car. The article on wear and maintenance of the 1/4" scale locos on the Wisconsin display that ran locos 300-400 real miles per season was interesting. I liked the article on turning a flat car into a pulpwood car, which makes me think I need to start a notepad of where to find items of interest again. And I liked the article on cab / block control. It made me appreciate my DCC on the current layout, plus the control cabinet box looks much like the one I added to my layout for turnout control. I must have remembered the details!

19

Guys these are exactly the sorts of thoughts and reactions I was hoping for in the book club – good job. Just to add a few more of my own thoughts to the mix, note that the excellent drawing of the C&O 2-8-4 Kanawhat type (with lots of prototype photos) is by Robert Hundman, who of course went on to publish his own excellent modeling magazine, Mainline Modeler, which always had lots of drawings, as well as CTC Board and N Scale Magazine.

In the column called MR Clinic, there is not only a tutorial on super elevated curves that remains useful today (to judge from the number of questions posted about super elevation on this Forum) complete with a funny cartoon to illustrate how NOT to do it, but also information and drawings of old fashioned freight car trucks OTHER than archbar trucks. I see for example that I myself was failing to distinguish between Fox trucks and Cloud pedestal trucks.

It is also an education to look at the list of hobby dealers at the back of the issue.

Keep it going. I promise to try for a nice mix of very old, somewhat old, and somewhat newer issues on a weekly basis.

Dave Nelson

20

Great thoughts so far. Love doing this. Already looking forward to next week!

Notes in point form

-Linn Westcott as editor, my all time favorite model railroad “celebrity”.

-The coupler debate was ongoing. New Products announces a new ¼ inch scale coupler from Suydam

-A Columbia records ad? LOL

-The Athearn rotary snow plow, in RTR was $3.95, compare that to the “new” one at $64.99 (modeltrainstuff.com) Using $7.47 as a conversion factor, we should be seeing that at $29.51… interesting.

-Trade Topics features two S scale products.

-Railway post office includes a letter referring to capacitors and their price. He points out he can buy a 4500uf capacitor for $2.76. They are available today for $2.90 from Mouser Electronics which would be $0.40 in 1965 dollars.

-Bowser was going strong as a manufacturer 50 years ago!

-Tru-Scale had 2 large ads. Walthers still lists them as manufacturers of track products but I don’t hear much about them anymore.

  • The editorial espoused the benefits of ¼ inch scale. It sounded to me like it was saying “it’s not dead yet!” Linn noted that the losses in numbers of O modellers could be attributed to the loss of the tinplaters.

-4 out of 5 models in the first 2 pages of Trackside models are indicated to be ¼ inch scale. The 5th does not indicate which scale but it is a scratch built diesel!

-The Ma & Pa! I loved that series, though I was introduced to it in a Kalmbach book, I think called Model Railroads You Can Build. This was at my side while I built my first layout. I think I know parts of it by heart!

-The Mostest Track. That article has stayed with me since I first read it. I was impressed with the honesty of Bill Rau. No matter what you think of it, you cannot argue that the fellow is having fun and running trains. If not for his little layout, he wouldn’t be buying trains and keep