MR product coverage lacking?

[ndbprr]

I take the reviews with a grain of salt any way. Back when ethics were paramount items were PURCHASED at hobby shops so they could tell how good a company's product was and gave an honest evaluation. Today it is, "Give it to us and we'll consider giving you a good report". It seems the emphasis is on not offending the potential advertizer instead of giving us what we need to know in many cases. Instead of continual rising rpices to feed the contests and giveaways how about an accounting of how the review items were disposed of? I am always leary when I see the item one of the reviewers discussed appearing in the next set of photos of the reviewers layout.

[CBQ_Guy]

Many of the manufacturers have an email newsletter you can sign up for on their websites in order to receive announcements and cutoff ordering dates on new products.

Athearn and Atlas are two which come to mind, but I guarantee there are MANY more. Between those and the new product announcements in MR (and don't forget their online announcements from trains.com, too!), it's pretty rare that, at least, the mainline manufacturer's (no pun intended) new products get by me. One other thing I need to start doing is to set aside some time each week to actually go to all the mfg. websites I have book marked and click on "What's New" to see if there's anything I've missed.

Hope this is helpful.

[orsonroy]

While the hobby MAY be shrinking, the sheer volume of new products that have come out over the past decade or so is mind-boggling. There's no way MR could ever hope to keep up with everything. Theur new releases section can't even keep up with a general listing of them all.

This is where the internet really comes in handy. There's a LOT of stuff out there that never makes it into any of the hobby mags, nor into the Walthers catalog, but that doesn't mean it's not great stuff. Just like anything else in this life, an informed consumer is a happy consumer, and you've gotta do research on your own to be truly informed!

[Anonymous]

I fully understand the limited number of reviews and find those which appear helpful. I could wish for more but am happy with those published. On the other hand, however, I find the new products announcement column woefully lacking. Part of this is the manufacturer's not getting announcements to the magazine by deadline (Microtrains for one). The idea of product security is brought up but that seems hardly reasonable considering lead times for many items. Other publications do have a better new products column and their example should be followed.

[Anonymous]

In defense of MR, though they hardly need my help, there are so many new offerings in any year that I'd say its hardly possible for them to cover even a large fraction. Have a quick look at the Walthers web site, note the number of new offerings, and you will see what I mean.

For what its worth, I share your frustration: not being able to find a specific offering after long search, only to discover its been widely available for decades. [banghead]

Randy

[Anonymous]

I normally don't take the side of MR....especially when it comes to reviews but there is just way too much stuff being manufactured nowadays to have everything reviewed in MR and/or all the other magazines. In just the past few months HO alone has gotten P2K 2-8-4's, SD-60's, Spectrum USRA 4-8-2's, 2-6-6-2's, EL-C (E-33) electrics, BLI has the PRR GG-1, M-1, T-1, USRA 2-8-2 and E-7, Kadee has the covered hopper, on and on and on. There just couldn't be a review of everything.

As much as everyone complains about the multitude of ads in MR it's often the only place to see or hear about new products. Many hobby shops don't or can't get one of everything new now like in the past so that route is gone.

I find myself going to the manufacturers websites frequently to see what they have new or pending. Most of them do a fairly acceptable job of keeping up with their sites and really want to get the interest up on new products they've spent a lot of time and money producing.

In spite of the varied opinion expressed on the talk boards it's often a good place to gather info on new releases and their varrying qualities and problems.

I personally don't buy MR for the ads and certainly not for their reviews. I buy it for the articles......................sometimes I wonder WHY???

Roger

[RhB_HJ]

As far as I know - I'm sure I'll get corrected - it is up to the mfgs to supply product updates to Kalmbach or any other publisher.

Keeping track of everything that is new in the hobby would be one mighty task!

OTOH it would be nice to get a quicker put through on stuff that is being supplied i.e. I have yet to see product news concerning ZIMO.

[Anonymous]

I recently won an eBay auction for a pair of Virginian 3-bay open hoppers (N-scale), which I hardly believed to be real at the time. I kept thinking that maybe they were labeled wrong and were HO scale for real, but I took the chance on them because I have been longing for a 70-ton 3-bay hopper for a long time. I thought there was nothing like this available in N-scale, and that I would have to kitbash a quad hopper to produce one for my N&W fleet.

Now that my VGN hoppers have arrived, I know that indeed they are real, and what's more, MDC has offered N&W hoppers (with peaked ends even!) for over a year.

I have been a subscriber to MR for almost twenty years, and I knew nothing of this. I've gone to train shows and not seen them, so perhaps they've been sold out or otherwise under-produced (thus not available on eBay). But, after recently acquiring a couple of the new Atlas C-628's, I realized that I have yet to see a product review of these as well.

Maybe the space in the magazine is limited, but really, part of the reason I read the magazine is for these reviews. Because everything is done limited-run these days, I need to get the heads-up notice so that I can plan to purchase.

Does anybody else get the same sense that I do, i.e. that the product coverage is somewhat lax? I think the products that do get reviewed are well-presented, but I'd rather have more products covered in brief if the alternative is neglect.