Not dening any thing stated as being true, But who better to get a oneside story about your accomplisments that your Golf friend. Now we see why this story was so one side. I'm very appauled that CTT would go that far to let this story be printed with knowing he was writing about a friend.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
I wrote about this last month, what a tremendous free ad that company got.
"IT's GOOD TO BE THE KING",by Mel Brooks
Charter Member- Tardis Train Crew (TTC) - Detroit3railers- Detroit Historical society Glancy Modular trains- Charter member BTTS
What is this about?
Bob Nelson
CTT page 29 last issue. This is the issue where the writer claims MTH made all the best new inventions.
Page 24 October issue.
The articles were written by a friend of Mike Wolf.
Lou writes an opinion column, guys. This is his opinion. If you disagree, submit something to the letters column discussing who you think has had a greater impact on the hobby. It is as simple as that.
Bob Keller
Very surprised anyone even reads Lou anymore. His columns are totally devoid of content as he overstates the obvious. When I get to that page, and quickly turn it without reading, I am constantly reminded how that space could be dedicated to something meaningful.
We survey every issue and Lou's column is very well regarded by our readers.
Maybe Lou's opinion but I was still surprised to see such a one sided two issue article in CTT. Lou's rating with me has gone to a minus 2.
So noted and I'll tell him when I see him at the Spring York.
sir james I Maybe Lou's opinion but I was still surprised to see such a one sided two issue article in CTT. Lou's rating with me has gone to a minus 2.
Ditto
Sorry to disagree boys, but I love Lou Palumbo's columns and look forward to reading them. As Mr. Keller said, it's Lou's opinions stated therein and you can take it or leave it.
My only regret is I live so far from Lou's "Underground Railroad Shop." I'd love to pay a visit one of these days, but Henrico VA to New Castle PA? Yikes!
Maybe one day.
PS: If you think it's easy writing a magazine column, think again. What do you write about? How do you keep it interesting? How far can you go before you exhaust your material? And remember that deadline's always staring you in the face. Remember how much "fun" writing a term paper was in high school?
DITTO!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
My whole point was this would of been a lot better if he wrote it as the accomplishments of both and there benefits to the O gauge community. Not just one sided of your golf buddy. But when he stated he played golf with Mike Wolf it was obvious that this whole Piece was to promote MTH. More free advertising for MTH basically.
Oh and trust me, I understand how hard it is to write a piece every month and keep the attention of the readers, again in my point of view it would have kept mine and others more if he did it as both.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. So what if Lou and Mike Wolf are friends? I've had the opportunity to meet Mike Wolf and talk with him. He's a nice guy and is passionate about the hobby.
Lou's column is an opion one. That's fine with me as we are all entitled to our opinions. I always enjoy Lou's pieces. I can understand how tough it must be to write a piece like Lou's because society as a whole seems to have wussed out and is overly sensitive and easily offended by differing opinions.
Personally? I like what MTH started doing around 2000. While Lionel was putting basic 4-4-2 Atlantics in their RTR sets, MTH put some nice Turbines, N&W Js, and the SP Daylight 4-8-4 in their RTR sets with Protosound 2.0 that was ready for DCS.
I grew up during the LTI/Lionel LLC era with those basic Atlantics. I was a Lionel guy. I was skeptical of MTH at first, but I came to prefer their products.
Jim
totally agree with Lou.
Dave
It's a TOY, A child's PLAYTHING!!! (Woody from Toy Story)
.
rtraincollector Please reread my original statement carefully. It had nothing to do with what he said but that Ctt allowed a 2 issue advertisement for MTH and pay the person to do so knowing it was his friend he was writing about. In most places that would fall under favortism and could get a person in hot water.
Please reread my original statement carefully. It had nothing to do with what he said but that Ctt allowed a 2 issue advertisement for MTH and pay the person to do so knowing it was his friend he was writing about.
In most places that would fall under favortism and could get a person in hot water.
It's an Op-Dd piece, he can present whatever he wants to in the space he's been given.
Rob
That's why I said in most places not all. But what I really was trying to say there is all these coming defending MTH products and I never said anything about the products. actually I like them for most part. I don't own any motive power as don't want at this time to purchase another control system and can't see buying a item if I can't operate it to it's ability. Ie if I can only run a command type piece in conventional mode. That is one of my biggest gripes that MTH could of done but wanted there own system. And I don't blame them but that's still where I say Lionel and MTH should get together to where you could run both systems from one type of system but they have each developed there system to the point I don't think it's possible completely now. But that's another subject. If you read by original comment it was more against CTT than Lou. Although it was towards him also. And yes he can write about anything he wants it a commentary page, I understand that. I just thought maybe it should of been more bias by CTT standards instead of a advertisement ( or brag sheet) for MTH, and that's about all it was.
If it was done in same fashion about Lionel would I have said anything probably not to be honest and that would be wrong on my part. But then I'm a Lionel person even thou I like MTH, Williams, Atlas, and others also. ( at least I'm honest about it lol)
Even thou I admitted I wouldn't probably say anything, I'm not one for one sided stories I prefer both sides and probably what I had against this commentary from the begining, but as a whole it was well put together but ( wish I was the person to do this type of work as now it needs to be done) now it needs to be done for Lionel and the rest in some form. Theres a lot to tell about all the manurfactures.
I wish I was someone that could keep my intrest in research for more than 10 - 15 minutes as it would be a great prodject.
Well RT those defending the articles are east coast MTH lovers. They have missed the point. That being a very one sided article that CTT who should be neutral, allowed published.
Edit I too have MTH products, this thread was about article content.
Joined 1-21-2011 TCA 13-68614
Kev, From The North Bluff Above Marseilles IL.
We are neutral. Lou is not an employee of CTT. He writes an opinion column. This was his opinion. If he had written two consecutive columns on how Dick Maddox (or insert any Lionel, Atlas, Williams, Weaver manager) was the critical man in the 21st Century toy train world we would let it run ... even if he was wine tasting buddies with Maddox.
You disagree with him, feel free to send a letter to the editor taking Lou to task. Don't grouse about it here, more people will see it in the magazine than in the forum for gosh sakes.
Bob health allowing I will see you in April. We can chat and have a laugh or two.
I agree with Bob Keller. I like Lou's column also but understand it is his opinion, which might be why it is called "Views From the Underground" and not "Indisputable Facts From the Underground." Of course, we live in a mass media culture today that often confuses opinions and facts.
If you stop and think about it, even the product reviews are really someone's opinion. Although it indeed may be a very well educated opinion, based upon seeing products from many companies, it is still ultimately an opinion.
Or the layout articles where the writer might make a claim because he uses "x" brand of track, that it is the best track. Well, that might be true for his layout and the types of trains he runs, but it is still ultimately an opinion.
CTT has done many articles over the years, about the history and products of various train companies, in addition to interviews with train company CEO's. I suppose one could take an extreme position and claim those are also free advertisements for a particular company or a particular product line. But I also enjoy reading those too.
I do not realistically expect the CEO of one company to be plugging the products of another company. That may also be biased, but it is also the reality of business. So if CTT allows, say Mike Wolf, to comment on the state of the hobby (which they have), I read that with the understanding that it is the way Mike Wolf sees it and that Jerry Calabrese might have seen it differently.
Of course, at one time this hobby was TOY trains and that was it. Lionel meant toy trains. Today it is different. Now we have more accurately scaled Lionel products. And there are those who think that the new scale are the only products worth making. Yet the traditional Polar Express set is the biggest selling train set in the entire history of Lionel - according to Lionel.
Or when people come to a train show and look at the display layouts, and exclaim "Look at all the Lionel trains!" when in reality, they might be all MTH trains. Does the perception that all 3-rail trains are "Lionel's" mean they are really all Lionel products? Of course not. Yet, to many not as well acquainted with the hobby, they are indeed all Lionel. So, which company is that a plug for?
Years ago someone commented to one of my posts, that you cannot possibly have fun in the hobby unless you are running scale trains with some sort of command control. Really? I beg to differ. There are no accurately scale trains on my layout nor any sort of digital control system, and yet still I have plenty of fun.
And for me, that's a fact. Which also is my opinion, which does not necessitate that it is also a fact for everyone else.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Completely different topic but since you brought it up. I went from post war to command equiped to the point started getting semi-scale and even some scale. Now I still have some of the latter I'm now about 85-90% postwar again. I have just gotten more interested in post war again. I do not have a layout at present but that will come soon I hope and it will mainly be post-war. I will have Tmcc hooked to the track should I want to run it but most likely not powered up. out of the 30 engines on displayed here in this room 3 are command equiped the other 27 are conventional.
I'm looking forward to my conventional Milk car and the cattle corral.
I might not always agree with him, but I always find Lou's Views interesting. And he writes exactly the way he speaks, as any of us who've visited The Underground can attest. My concern for CTT is demographic. The writing and article choices have become hopelessly stuck in the pre-1969 era. Now I may not be a marketing genius... but the generation x folks who were raised on Lionel by General Mills are now turning 50+... and CTT has yet to seriously address that demo.
Jon
I totally agree, Jon.
Good to know Bob!
Being one who was born in 1969 I second the idea of seeing more MPC and beyond. The Kuhn (sp?) era started 30 years ago so it's hard to call even that era "current". They're definately classics now.
Has the proverbial dead horse not been beaten enough over this? I know many think nothing in our hobby exists after 1969, but there has been a TON of good things that have kept this hobby moving forward over the last 4+ decades. Let's face it; Lionel was on life support in the late 60's. Like Becky, I too grew up in the MPC era. When I took a 10 year hiatus from our hobby and resumed again in the mid 90's, it was the affordability of MPC/LTI that allowed me to start building a decent collection. Also, I was inspired by this relatively new company known as MTH. They had scale and realistic detailed locomotives and rolling stock while Lionel was still producing mostly "traditional" sized product. Even though I mostly lean towards Lionel myself, I agree 100% with Lou on what MTH did to push our hobby forward. (For the record, I'm not on Mr. Wolf's payroll!) The Boomers won't be able to be the backbone of our hobby for ever. There needs to be fresh innovation to help draw in younger people to keep our hobby going. Be the way, I grabbed a random CTT issue (July 2010) from my collection a few minutes ago to see what Lou wrote about in his column. He actually used his whole column to rave about Lionel's, yes Lionel, Lone Ranger Wild West set......... Keep searchin' :)
I was also born during the MPC era, and I enjoy that era of Lionel trains. But lately I've been buying and playing with toys from my Grandfather's time, prewar trains.
As for Lou's article, I haven't read it yet, but I've enjoyed all his articles up to this one, so I will guess this one will be worth the time I'll have invested in it.
J White
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month