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Once upon a time, not too long ago, MR featured some really great articles on kitbashing, scratchbuilding, adapting prototypes to model railroading, etc. Or am I getting that confused with another publication? I realize that publishing a monthly magazine is a daunting challenge at times, having done that approx 20 yrs ago in the automotive/hot-rodding field. Model Railroader has always been my 'bible' and I've been a subscriber on and off for many years, but lately I have been disappointed in the content and depth of much of the material and I am particularly annoyed at what is beginning to evolve into primarily a RTR/expensive approach to the hobby -- that is a part of the overall hobby, but not what will maintain my interest. I refer back to my old and ragged, dog -eared early issues repeatedly, esp now that I am starting on the layout I've only been able to dream of in the past. Those older issues are keepers, and for the most part, timeless in their long term value to a modeler. I've rediscovered RMC recently and frankly it is of more value to me than the current -day MR - and I hope that it is okay to utter such constructive critisism on this Forum. My observation is that Kalmbach's releasing annuals (eg "Model Railroad Planning" & "Great Model Railroads"), as well as having introduced, taken over, or is 'involved' with in some fashion, "Garden Railways", "Short Line & Narrow Gauge Gazette", etc. , is spreading out much of the content of what used to be part of Model Railroader. From a marketing sense this may be successful for Kalmbach, but is it for the hobby? One could argue that those only interested in large scale should go for "Garden Railways", or those into narrow gauge should. . .etc., etc. At the current cover price of $4.95 MR is reasonable, although one would hope that loyal subscribers should get a better deal. . . What concerns me is just how thin MR appears to be getting and what do I really get out of it. One only has to look at what Kalmbach has done to "Scale Auto Magazine" aka "Scale Auto Enthusiast" and "Car Modeler" before Kalmbach 'bought out' both, merged them together and cut the quality, content, and number of pages-and now it's going to an issue every other month. Maybe the move by advertisers to the Internet has eroded a significant amount of Kalmbach's revenue. It would be refreshing to see Kalmbach comment on some of this, and if they need assistance re: ideas, techniques, prototypes of rolling stock, motive power, railroad infrastructure, or even prototype railroads worth modeling, they should ask for our inputs-after all, catering to the modeler over the years has been the key to MR's success. I for one hope that MR is around for another 70 years.
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