acgilbert wrote:Speaking of proper hats, how about the striped engineer's cap with big front emblem lettered with Model Railroader magazine's ex-motto: "Model Railroading Is Fun". This cap was worn by modelers shown on the front covers of MR for January '49, July '49, August '49, September '49, November '51, and August '52. May have appeared elsewhere over the years, as well in ads by the manufacturer Kromer Cap Company. No longer available with the emblem and probably never will be since MR dropped the slogan quite some time ago.
Sometimes RMC's Hal Carstens would be photographed wearing a Model Railroading is Fun railroader's hat -- the irony being that that was Model Railroader Magazine's slogan. But, as I think Linn Westcott once wrote about the time he and Hal Carstens were seen talking together at an NMRA convention: who else would feel sorry for you but a fellow editor?
Dave Nelson
Midnight Railroader wrote: dknelson wrote: In many of these types of photos the proud owner would be photographed running a train, and in a surprising number of cases, he was smoking a pipe. Conclusion -- bring back pipe smoking and all will be well again ...I'd noted this too, and one of KPC's old wiring books featured a cover photo of a man working on wiring while smoking a pipe, as well.I don't smoke, but I have considered buying a pipe to use as a prop in re-creating one of these types of shots (which would be in B&W, of course).
dknelson wrote: In many of these types of photos the proud owner would be photographed running a train, and in a surprising number of cases, he was smoking a pipe. Conclusion -- bring back pipe smoking and all will be well again ...
Conclusion -- bring back pipe smoking and all will be well again ...
I don't smoke, but I have considered buying a pipe to use as a prop in re-creating one of these types of shots (which would be in B&W, of course).
Many of the photos from the 50's also showed everybody wearing a jacket and tie.
Maybe in addition to a pipe we should all wear 3 piece suits complete with pocket watch and fob. Then we'll be real model rails
Enjoy
Paul
ChrisNH wrote: Bob grech wrote:My layout was featured in the Nov 2006 issue. It measures less than 100 sq feet, and was inspired from a MR project article: John Olsen's Jerome and Southwestern. Thanks for the overview shots Bob.. very nice.Having overview shots and shots showing wiring and such would be great "online extras" for futiure layouts. Regards,Chris
Bob grech wrote:My layout was featured in the Nov 2006 issue. It measures less than 100 sq feet, and was inspired from a MR project article: John Olsen's Jerome and Southwestern.
My layout was featured in the Nov 2006 issue. It measures less than 100 sq feet, and was inspired from a MR project article: John Olsen's Jerome and Southwestern.
Thanks for the overview shots Bob.. very nice.
Having overview shots and shots showing wiring and such would be great "online extras" for futiure layouts.
Regards,
Chris
My thanks also. Those are the kind of pictures I would like to see MR include. They really provide a sense of what the layout looks like. And the fine modeling still comes through.
wm3798 wrote:From what I see, every issue provides enough material for someone to complain about...Every month, I look mine over in an evening, then it goes on the night table, and each night for about a week, I'll read over the articles more thoroughly. Then for another week, I'll rummage through the ads to see what's out there and who's got a good deal or a new website.I think there's a really good cross section of layout articles. Granted, there are probably more big layouts featured than small, but I think what does get featured is almost always of good quality.I agree that there should be more "context" shots that show how the layout fits in the room, and I think it would be motivational to include shots of unfinished sections. This would be useful to explain how benchwork is built, and how the builder approaches scenery construction. (Two areas that a lot of us struggle with, if frequent questions to these forums are any indicator). Lee
From what I see, every issue provides enough material for someone to complain about...
Every month, I look mine over in an evening, then it goes on the night table, and each night for about a week, I'll read over the articles more thoroughly. Then for another week, I'll rummage through the ads to see what's out there and who's got a good deal or a new website.
I think there's a really good cross section of layout articles. Granted, there are probably more big layouts featured than small, but I think what does get featured is almost always of good quality.
I agree that there should be more "context" shots that show how the layout fits in the room, and I think it would be motivational to include shots of unfinished sections. This would be useful to explain how benchwork is built, and how the builder approaches scenery construction. (Two areas that a lot of us struggle with, if frequent questions to these forums are any indicator).
Lee
Yup, that's what I do with my copy too! Really I could care less what layout is featured each month. What I like to see is detail on how things were built, painted, wired, etc. The "how-to" features are what really drew me to the magazine after I got my fill of looking at pictures of layouts.
Given the practical realities of even the larger layouts, a photo of a layout that tries to be a "let's pretend this is a prototype shot" tend to focus on that small area if they want to leave out the fascia, the overhead lights, the doors, the windows, the turnback curves and other "give aways."
Years ago MR would run this same kind of photo (and it looked more "real" because it was generally in black and white!), but also used to try to feature more of the "what it's like to step into the guy's basement" type of photo, showing the floor, the overhead joists, the lighting fixtures, and -- a specialty back in pre-DCC days -- the control panel, often a subject of envy and display all of its own, with the cover pulled back to show how neat the wiring was. In many of these types of photos the proud owner would be photographed running a train, and in a surprising number of cases, he was smoking a pipe.
Conclusion -- bring back pipe smoking and all will be well again ....
Have Fun.... Bob.
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
The photos also don't give a very good idea of how the layout would look in person. The photos tend to be the same scale distance from the subject whether it's N or O or in between. Looking at an N scale layout is very different than looking at an O scale layout.
Frankly, a lot of the photos make the models look like they're S scale - probably because that's the size that fits on the page (same reason a lot of the old monthly drawings, esp. rolling stock, were in S). It's probably one reason I'm in S - the models look like the same size as the pictures in MR. So if you like what you see in MR you need to move to S scale.
But still, the layouts are my favorite articles in MR.
I used to wonder why you'd see all the photos taken in a 2'x3' area when the track plan shows a 30' x 54' basement empire... The illustration typically shows the layout appearing to be scenicked. Of course, now I understand that 2'x3' section is probably the only part that's finished.
MRP shows plenty of work-in-progress shots, which I like. I kinda wish MR's regular features would show the occasional part of an unfinished layout. It's one thing to read about how it was built; quite another to see it.
Every now and then I see a small layout in MR. Often they look either cluttered or cutsey. But I think they're still an important part of the hobby, and can be as inspirational (in a different way) than an uncompressed version of Raton Pass.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Photo coverage of most layouts in MR is usually limited to very small scenes, and never really show the vastness of how the layout would appear if one was there visiting it in person. So big layout or a small one all seem to appear to be the same in the magazine with the exception of the trackplan. That's the way it is.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
ChrisNH wrote:There have been quite a few smaller layouts of late. This month has a shelf layout. Last month has a layout that was just an engine terminal. Before that was that small less then 4x8 merrimac valley. There was that Steel Mill layout.. the great northern in N that was very small.. I really dont see a bias.What does irk me though is they do not feature enough track plans for a 13x13 basement space with a 3 foot aisle on two adjoining sides in n-scale featuring northern new england railroads. I am really sick of it! Chris
There have been quite a few smaller layouts of late. This month has a shelf layout. Last month has a layout that was just an engine terminal. Before that was that small less then 4x8 merrimac valley. There was that Steel Mill layout.. the great northern in N that was very small.. I really dont see a bias.
What does irk me though is they do not feature enough track plans for a 13x13 basement space with a 3 foot aisle on two adjoining sides in n-scale featuring northern new england railroads. I am really sick of it!
Same thing with HO scale! I think it's a conspiracy!
I got to operate on one large layout that had a feature article in MR several years ago. The only part that was sceniced was literally the 4 feet of benchwork featured in the opening shot. The rest was bare benchwork (and track).
It was still a good layout and a heckuva lot of fun to operate.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
The one thing I would like to see more of is to show that not all parts are necessarily completed. I don't mean huge closeups on a piece of empty plywood but just some general pictures showing us that there might be work left to do. Kind of encouraging I think.
Magnus
The larger layouts provide so many more photo opportunities than the smaller ones so they make for better featured articles. There is also more to write about as far as construction and operation. That's not to say interesting articles couldn't be written about the smaller layouts and am always interested in saying outstanding layouts regardless of size. It just seems to me it would be difficult to fill a multi-page spread with an article about the smaller layouts. Maybe once or twice a year, MR could feature one or two page articles on several outstanding small layouts instead of one big one.
Remember, MR can only publish what is presented to them. Are the builders of the outstanding small layouts not submitting them because they don't think MR will publish them or does MR not publish them because no one is submitting them?
I would agree with Ulrich about having trouble relating to the larger layouts (now, if they have close-ups of interesting smaller sections, okay...). But I very much enjoy the small layouts - such as the ones Iain Rice has had in MR from time to time (e.g., the Roque Bluffs series, which was only about 2' X 8' or so). Even the awesome layouts like Pelle Soeberg's (excuse my misspelling if you read this, Pelle) aren't too far beyond the space and capabilities of a lot of us. The Cat Mountain & Santa Fe layout (by Dave ...?...) also wasn't highly intricate, so I could find something to draw from that. Now Rod Stewart's MR spread was less useful for me (partly because I will never have that much space, nor all those helpers, and partly because his RR is set in a time period earlier than I model). But there may be others for whom that layout really got their creative juices going, too.
Takes a variety of styles - for me, so long as they have some closer-in photos (not encompassing the whole basement-sized layout), I can find something useful. My ...
Jim in Cape Girardeau
Dave,
I agree wholeheartedly , Ben King and his model railroad were great (not huge), an incentive to all model railroaders and he was in the MR on more than one occasion. He's missed.
I think that there have been a lot of articles on great things in small places. The final result is up to our own imagination.
Dennis
Model Railroad Planning features some smaller layouts. And of course the MR project layouts are always small. More to the point, every large layout is a connected series of smaller scenes. Don't let lumber envy distract you from that.
But I wonder about your fundamental assumption. There are not many layouts smaller than the late Ben King's was. But every structure was a piece of scratch built perfection, every inch of track a marvel of realism, the colors of his scenery and the overall feel of the layout were all amazingly realistic. His photos were similarly amazing, and he built his own cameras sometimes taking a year to construct a camera just to take one particular picture. Speaking for myself, I can "relate" to a huge layout eight times the size of mine but built to my ... shall we say ... casual standards far more than I can "relate" to a gem of perfection like Ben King's.
And having said that. I have little interest in seeing a published layout built to my standards and I doubt if any of you would want to see it either. For that I can go downstairs, or go on local layout tours.