One more thought, maybe the next thread I start should be one defining and categorizing different layout concepts…
My layout concept is pretty well explained in my track plan thread… others make different choices.
Sheldon
I like layout articles. While I read them all, my favorites are larger than a 4x8 and smaller than a one car garage.
I also like to see articles on model building using simple tools. No power tools except maybe a Dremel - no laser cutter, airbrush, lathe, etc.
I would love to see articles on safer modeling like safe soldering, alternatives to soldering, safer glues, paints, etc.
My current layout (and maybe last if I don’t move again) is 10.5x30. It’s a point to point shortline (Maryland and Pennsylvania RR prototype), I have room to expand it, but at 74 I’ll be happy just to get this much operational with some scenery.
MR is and has always been my favorite, but I have subscribed to RMC and been a member of the NMRA since 1972.
Paul
An update.
1962-63. Staff, 12 articles. Readers, 95 articles.
1963-64. Staff, 17 articles. Readers, 74 articles.
1964-65. Staff, 19 articles, Readers, 72 articles.
1965-66. Staff, 27 articles. Readers, 58 articles.
1966-67, Staff, 16 articles. Readers, 68 articles.
1967-68. Staff, 21 articles. Readers, 77 articles.
1968-69. Staff, 27 articles. Readers, 76 articles.
[:)]
I like the product reviews, but I wish they were more critical, as in past times. What about comparative reviews? Test all models of a certain prototype currently on the market side-by-side. I am aware that the magazine is not “Consumer Reports”, but depends on its advertisers and should avoid to annoy them. However, many for-profit magazines in other areas are able to walk this fine line. And you can express your criticism positively (“While the ‘company A’ F3/F7 is the prototypically most correct, the ‘company B’ has the better sound” .)
I would like to see a few pages on grade crossing gates and signals. No one, to my knowledge, makes anything better than a small, local crossing that basically is just a single track crossing that activates when a train is directly over it. All the components are available, but no one puts them together.
I have built a pair of crossing protection systems, one just crossbucks and one a set of gates. I used optical sensors, a commercial circuit and commercial signals.
I researched every component, bought them, assembled them and wired them up. But, many modelers don’t have my stubborn patience.
As it happened, my latest issue of MR arrived the other day. As usual, I thumbed through it first, with this thread in mind. There was one basement sized layout, and it was in N scale. There was an article which built a plastic kit, basically exactly as it was designed, paying attention to using an airbrush, basically just to have something to do with an airbrush. There were a couple of philosophy articles. The whole magazine seemed kind of thin. There were two full pages pushing the newly monetized online stuff.
What would I like to see? Imagination. That is a large part of the hobby. We see ourselves mirrored in our layouts. We see ourselves in the Transition Era, or the Steam Age. This month, the best photography was in the few pages of Trackside Photos, those pages devoted to user-submitted photos of their own layouts. None of the staff photoshoots came close.
Stop being so dang corporate and go back to having fun playing with trains. MR has lost its way and needs to get back on track.
There’s a sentence that I’ve typed so many times that I’ve put it in a draft e-mail so I can just copy and paste it: “Model Railroader magazine could not exist without the contributions of modelers like you.”
When I came to MR almost 14 years ago, we had 8-1/2 people on staff (one split his time with another magazine). Now we are five, and all of us also have responsibilities with other publications. Which means that we rely more than ever on our reader-contributors to provide the content that makes up our magazine.
Which is to say: If you want to see a particular kind of article in the magazine, write it. Or find someone who knows more about the topic than you do to write it. We can select submitted articles, we can solicit article submissions, we can suggest topics people might submit. But we can’t publish an article if nobody submits it.
We do what we can to fill in the gaps with regular departments like Rehab My Railroad (formerly Step By Step). But we can’t generate most of our content in-house any more. Those days are gone. Want to see a particular kind of article in the magazine? Write it. Not a writer? Send us a Trackside Photo. Not a writer or a photographer? Ask a friend who is. Seriously. Please. We would be more than glad to publish the kind of articles you want to read. But we can’t publish the article nobody writes.
That answer pulled no punches. [:)] Thanks.
I like it.
Would an article from a UK modeler modeling a UK layout make the MR pages?
Ermmmmm!! I’ll give it a go. [:D]
David
Steven Otte, thanks! Your comment is something that I did not know.
We have a lot of expert modelers on this forum. I hope that some of them consider your suggestion.
Mr. otte. I am reminded of a true statement that for every person that says something, there is a vastly large number that think but do not say it. With that in mind, may I suggest that a shortened version of your post be created and published monthly on the first page to remind readers in bold print that is how the magazine states afloat. That hopefully would drum up more articles too. And note they get paid for it. Something to consider
shane
so considering the title of this thread – what type of magazine articles would interest you that you rarely see?
i submitted one a few years ago, and that the magazine is apparently not interested in that type of article.
If you let one rejection stop you, that’s on you.
How much we taking here?Kidding, kidding.
Unless…
I’m not in the loop when it comes to payments, so this is a rough guess, but the range is about $75-$100 per published page, depending on how long the contributor has been writing for us. So a typical layout visit article from a first-time contributor would be about $450-$600. If someone else shoots the photos, that amount gets split between the writer and the photographer.
just pointing out that i tried. never got any feedback
would you be couteous enough to answer my question?
Ok Greg, you got my curiosity up, what kind of article did you write?
I could be wrong, but I don’t see them publishing any of my somewhat “anti progress” pieces I post on here.
Like my recent piece on sprung/equalized trucks in an age when all but one brand freight car comes with rigid trucks. It’s kind of like saying to every advertizer your product is sub par.
Or, the discussion in that thread about code 88 wheels, that whole thread is “anti industry progress” if you choose to take it that way.
Do you think that more than three readers want to read about my relay based signal system? Given the small numbers of people on this forum that express any interest in signals, no matter what kind of high tech computer gismo controls them, I don’t see much interest in that.
OR, I could do a piece on how I put working, touching American Limited diaphragms on all my passenger equipment - and I would have to write it is such a way as to dance around all these $100 RTR passenger cars with two foot scale gaps between the diaphragms…
Just ask Steve, which of these articles would he like me to submit?
Maybe after the layout is well underway, I can do a piece on the layout, and bring up the topics noted above…
Sheldon
I would love to see an article, or series of aticles, on manufacturing a " brand new" steam locomotive from the concept, through the process, to when the loco ends up on my layout and the amount of time it took to get there.
How about an article that is for Arduino beginners? If you look online or on Youtube, there are lots of articles that claim they’re for beginners, but within minutes they are into things that require some electronic knowledge, and the pictures usually have the person’s hands blocking the view of the wiring.
I guess it would be a good article for me and a small group of interested readers to have an article, with lots of pictures, that is truly for beginners.
Greg, earlier in this thread, you expressed an idea I wanted to explore more.
“they have a model railroad, but they don’t model a raiload”
And you made a related observation:
“all the layouts i’m familiar with are designed to operate in realistic ways and use various construction techniques. current work involves building benchwork, trackwork, switch machines, (lots of) wiring and various electronics (some custom).”
I was not offened in any way, as you feared some might, but the meaning of the first statement requires we define “modeling” or “model railroading”.
One definition of the word “modeling” would negate the statement. “modeling” is the process of building a model, in this case a scale model of trains and their related scenic features. Having a model railroad, that you more or less built yourself, would statisfy the second - you have modeled a railroad.
The statement therefor seems to assume value in things like prototype operating sessions, historical accuracy, etc. If we go down that road, we quickly get into the dreaded “who is a REAL model railroader” topic. No thank you.
I would submit that it is impossible for any of us to model “everything” about railroading. So if I build a “display” layout with no sidings or industries, or in the case of my new layout, design a layout so that one of its operational formats can be like a museum display, am I still not modeling one aspect of real railroading? The over the line travel of mainline train
To Sheldon’s point, and to Greg’s, it would be helpful to know what articles interest MR. And what type of content would be more likley to get published. As others said, maybe a sticky on this forum would be helpful.
I get the layout tour articles, and maybe that’s the main way readers contribute, but there are many other topics.
The style of writing is sometimes a bit different, and advertisers and financial supporters of the mag is not something the average reader contributor is going to think about when writing an article.
The July MR has a wonderful article by Cody Grivno on building a freelanced industry, Cargill Salt. Part of the Rehab my Railroad series which I find to be a nice addition.
Its basically a kitbashing article. However, I noticed that it seemed to go a bit out of the way to pepper the names of manufacturers of hobby products where the content of the task didn’t seem to have to go that far. Painting a small roof vent a specific kind of gray paint from Tamiya seemed a bit obvious way to get a name in there. JMO.
Its fine. I get it. And I support the mag giving a shout out to all hobby companies that contributed to the project. Its just that the average contributor would not think about that extensive of a product list when they would write an article. Would it get rejected for something like that?
I don’t notice if Pelle Soeburg or others do that.