Seems like changes coming in the MRR print edition

[xboxtravis7992]

SeeYou190

RMC, back then and today, seems like it is directed towards people that are NOT having fun with model railroading.

For my hobby ambitions, electric trains are about fun, and RMC never made a connection with me.

Okay I'll take the bait on this one, I guess since I have already said my subscription money has gone to RMC.

Personally my biggest gripe with Model Railroader currently is a lot of the content is limited to that created by the editors's and their "project layouts." We all know the names, the Milwaukee Racine and Troy, "The Beer Line", Koester's Nickel Plate Road, Soeborg's Daneburg and Daneville layouts, etc. The problem this creates for me though is it gets, boring fast seeing the same five layouts issue to issue. I have a running joke in my friend group, its a Model Railroader issue if its all about any of the following 1) an Appalachian TT&TO coal layout, 2) a Rio Grande Narrow Gauge layout, 3) a granger Mid-West layout, 4) a Mojave Desert layout 5) an eastern city with a steel mill. Its a very strong reflection of the interests of the MRR staff, and it just gets very very samey very fast. It doesn't help that many of the featured layouts from guest writers also tend to hit similar themes (there are exceptions, that OO layout and the recent Civil War layout were highlights). 

Here is the thing if I wanted to read up on Pelle or Tony's work, what is cheaper? Subscribing to a magazine to get a drip feed over several years, or buying one of the regular Kalmbach books that compiles their articles into one paperback for about $20? I tend to find it much more digestable to read the paperbacks for a MRR "staff project" layout than I do seeing it fill up magazine space every few months.

That is what struck me differently about RMC when I picked it up a few years ago. Yes, the staff has their pet interests, I know Otto is very much into the commuter scene and modeling that. However, RMC tends to put a bigger focus on their reader's contributions. There is no "staff White River Productions" layout, the star of each issue really is the guest layouts. I remember in 2019 reading the stuff themed around the NMRA Convention in Utah by interviewing various local layout owners who live in the area. You'd think that picking up a bunch of Utah based layouts would be a nonstop theme of Rio Grande or something like that, but instead we saw everything from the docks of New York City to the plains of Wyoming in those layouts. Not to mention it was still layered between other RMC issues that year which visited many other themes and layout settings. 

So for me, that's more fun. Its a lot more variety, there is a sense of pride in the layout owners being featured, etc. Not to mention the greater focus on prototype information in RMC is a boon for model railroaders trying to build up their reference library. I feel Model Railroader would improve it took a step back from focusing on their own staff projects and tried to tailor the issues to more reader contributions, more of that unique stuff like the Civil War layout or OO scale layout I already mentioned and less of revisiting the same five layouts over and over again. I got tired after three years of subscriptions to MRR (and various magazines bought at stores before then) that the magazines all blurred together into a very samey collection over time without enough variety issue to issue to help each one stand out. 

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

Well, I'm not much for reading books or mags on a computer screen, but I am getting a little more use to it.

I've been a subscriber to MR since about 1971.......and I still have them all........

And most of the three decades before that........

I do currently subsribe to RMC as a well, and have been an off and on RMC subscriber since the 80's.

My total RMC collection is almost as complete as my MR collection........

And then there are the books.......

Having been at this pretty steady since about 1968, my view is that these publications evolve, they always have.

Sometimes I really enjoy them, somtimes not so much. But for the price of the subscription, I would just has soon have them as not. They are a reference tool and a historical record.

Back in the day, RMC was a little more as the title implies, a little more "serious".

MR, while very mature or serious at several points in its history, has always remained a little more "broad" in its appeal and scope.

I am amused at the idea that every issue of a magazine should be filled with "what I want to model". It's a big tent even if you just focus on HO and N scale.

I have also never gotten "attached" to writers or editors, they come, they go.....

I still find much of the 30, 40 and 50 year old information very useful, that is why I have 2000 plus magazines, and hundreds of books, that will store neatly under the layout.......and on the large bookcase I am building in my office.

Videos generally bore me silly........

If anyone wants hints of how to store magazines, let me know. There is one simple trick that saves a ton of space.

Did I mention the NMRA publications, and others that have come and gone, Model Railroading, The Scale Coupler, etc.......

Sheldon

[SeeYou190]

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

I have also never gotten "attached" to writers or editors, they come, they go.....

I miss the Russ Larson years. That was when the magazine was always exciting to find in the mailbox. Maybe a lot more of it had to do with my age than Russ Larson's editing style.

-Kevin

[Enzoamps]

I been reading MR for 60+ years now, since my first HO layout.  I read RMC too but preferred MR.  Something about MR had a better look to it.  I have a stack on the corner of the vanity in my restroom, I like to read it at the diner or kitchen table.  Or when travelling.  Don't care to read on computer devices.   (Also read Nat Geo and Scientific American)  I do read cover to cover, the ads are interesting as well as the articles.  Online I hate when I get my mouse lined  up and as I am about to click,BOOM, up pops the full page buy/subscribe ad for something they sell.  Reminds me of when I am reading the paper and my wife drops a stack of mail on it in front of me.

[rrinker]

 Ads? What ads? Digital subscriptions don;t have popup ads, they have the same ads as the print version - and in the case of some publications, the ads also link to the advertiser's web page. There's simply sending out a digital form of the print magazine, and then there's actually using the different medium - take a look at the other options out there and see if you still feel the same way about digital reading, although a magazine is best on a tablet size device, phones are far too small, and a full computer screen ties you to a desk. With my tablet I can relax in the same comfy chair I read print material in.

 Back when RMC was published in New Jersey, they were much more concentrated on Eastern roads, which made it more appealing to me compared to MR and yet another midwest layout. It only made sense - it's easiest to go doa layout feature on something close to the offices, and people generally tend to model something near them, with some notable exceptions. 

 There is of course no pleasing some people., The average technical level of MR went up under Andy Sperandeo's editorial tenure, but people complained about not enough beginner material. When there's beginner material, people complain that there's not enough advanced material. Nothing new - way back in the 60's there is an anecdote about how RMC published a John Allen article, when one hadn't appeared in MR in some time, and MR got a letter that said "stop printing so much John Allen stuff" 

                                     --Randy

 

 

[NVSRR]

They need to find a working balance of advanced modeler,  technical, and beginner. But written so that the beginner con follow the advanced but the advanced can still learn something new from the beginner.    Like the way it used to be written.   I realize it is a contributor based, but they need to do better at accepting more articles.   Like maybe just rewriting an article to fit the space instead of rejecting it out right because it won't fit.    They have to publish them faster too cause some articles now have a shelf life. Where at one time, none of them did. 

shane

[rrebell]

Print magazines are dead, most of the mags that you grew up with are gone or digital only. I am talking about most of the mags our mothers or sisters read too, even Family Circle is gone. Now the funny part is there are more titles than ever out there but many are nitch ones with limited readership much smaller than MR. Good news is MR is moving to digital.

[Benjamin Maggi]

NVSRR

 That what they did with Garden Railways.   Went bimonthly for two years. Then quarterly.   NOw gone.     Haven't seen anything pop up in MR from GR. Like I was hopeing it would.    

I believe that GR was bimonthly for many years. At least 20 if I remember correctly, and perhaps all the way back to the beginning. Then when it switched to quarterly, I stopped my subscription.

[Enzoamps]

Ads? What ads?  Why the ones right here on this very web site on which I am reading this very forum.  Pop right up on me every time I start.  Even with Ad Block.

[rrinker]

 Must have allowed them. I used Ad Block Plus and I haven't seen an ad here in ages. And all those inline ads in YouTube? None of those, either. My YouTube watching is blissfully ad free. Clearly works - because on this page, ie, clicking on this thread, it blocked 5 ads so far.

 And there are no pop ads in the digital version of the magazine, or the digital versions of special issues, or any of the books.

                             --Randy

 

[tstage]

rrinker

I used Ad Block Plus and I haven't seen an ad here in ages. And all those inline ads in YouTube? None of those, either. My YouTube watching is blissfully ad free. Clearly works - because on this page, ie, clicking on this thread, it blocked 5 ads so far.

 And there are no pop ads in the digital version of the magazine, or the digital versions of special issues, or any of the books.

                             --Randy

Yep, same for me.