My dad bought a copy of "HO Railroad That Grows" for me when I was a boy, and I still use it; the track plan (which is tremendously flexible) formed the basis for my current layout. When I built the control panel, with 26 blocks wired for dual cab control, I did all the work with copies of "HO Railroad That Grows" and "ABCs of Model Railroading" open in front of me. I had never wired anything more complex than a ceiling fan, an electric socket replacement, or a field telephone, but when I flipped the switches, it all worked exactly as designed. Much more of a statement about the quality of those articles than it is about my electrical skills!
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
The years have clouded my memory but weren't some Model Trains articles reprinted in Boys Life magazine. I seem to recall something along the lines of The HO Railroad That Grows.
I always liked the railroads you can model features as well. There also for a while seemed to be a similar series in RMC that had a fair amount of history and roster information on prototype railroads. I miss those types of articles and the kit building and bashing articles, particularly the great articles by Art Curran, hope I spelled his name correctly. It seems that there are shortages of building things in the hobby today (in regards to rolling stock) compared to years gone by and there is a much greated basis on the ready to disassemble stuff than the build it stuff.
I think it would be a nice touch if the hobby press could begin to get the manufacturers interested in production of kits again. There are several models that if released in kits instead of ready to disassemble I would be interested in buying. As it is now I will be buying from Accurail, Atlas (the old branchline kits), Bowser, and F&C for merchandise in production and trainshows to buy the out of production stuff. I suspect a simple kit or two built in an article in each issue might begin to stimulate interest in the kit market again.
It is interesting though, in the recent past we have had modelers join our club so they could learn about the hobby and how things work. When I was a kid we learned those things from building kits and reading the magazines. Seems things have changed a lot in regards to the hobby.
I suspect the search feature might need some work Art Curran produces no results on this web site but an internet check does.
After further review it turns out I did spell his name incorrectly it should be Curren and the search shows that he was an author. There should be more than that listed for him in my opinion. He contributed some really nice structure articles over the years to the magazine.
I'll have to check, seems to me I have a Model Trains Annual for 1960 or 1961, sort of a 'best of Model Trains' collection for that year.
WWII interrupted the fledgling HO scale buildup. The war helped blossum technology a bit for MRing, but the return was extremely slow for reasons given earlier in this thread. The "HO Monthly", precursor to "Model Trains", was vibrant, hopeful and alive with Allen articles and a healthy monthly rumor mill of what manufacturers were promising once the materials needed were forthcoming.
A couple of the finest most enjoyable sections were "Whistle Stop - where readers can let off a little steam" and my favorite was, " 'round th' cabin" with Roundhouse Jim. He would ramble on about this and that in the industry covering 20 items or thoughts in his singe page bombast. He was constantly using slang and contractions with mispelled words, etc. Not polished and not PC, but you got the feeling you were one with the guy in his model railroad thoughts...Kinda' like sitting around the pot bellied stove in a caboose with a heavy snow outside chewin' th' fat over a cup o' joe with a grizzled old railroader.
So dramatic were his thoughts tirades and convictions that in each issue the editors covered themselves with a disclaimer saying Round House Jim's thoughts were his own and they did not necessarily speak for or represent the opinions of the magazine or it publisher.
Good old time stuff when HO was "post war new" and looking to explode over all the other gauges...Which it did.
MR, of course published HO during the war, but there was a palpable sense that an exclusively HO magazine's time had come...and it had, in spite of the early thin issues.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
As a young child, about the time I discovered MR, I found copies of Model Trains in my dentist's office. Well, at least my parents had no trouble (well not much) getting me to go to the dentist after that.
I've found copies at shows, museums, and used book stores. I never paid them as much attention as MR, until I found one with an E.L. Moore article on building a snowplow- one of those great-but-simple projects he specialized in. Some of the Kalmbach books published in the 1970s include articles from MT, including a few of his structures, but I don't know if they ever reprinted the equipment articles.
"Model Trains" came and went before I got involved in the hobby. Is there a way to see back issues without ordering them from a dealer? The "Railroad You Can Model" reprints are great.
The magazine catered to the needs of younger modelers without patronizing them. How-to articles explained the process and techniques needed to complete a project, and presumed that a youngster would take the info at face value. There were projects for those who felt willing to try something challenging, with no apologies. In his kit reviews, Linn Westcott often gave practical, helpful hints that the reader could use in building the kits. He carried this to its logical conclusion when he told how to build and detail a Penn Line (later Bowser) Decapod. Some of the techniques were pretty advanced, but nobody ever suggested the younger modelers couldn't manage them. The Ohio River & Wabash was another project that pulled no punches in suggesting to kids "You can do this!"
Nowadays there seems to be too much reliance on the R-T-R culture. Many articles today seem not to trust the confidence and ability of the reader. I think a lot of our younger readers (as well as older folk who are relatively new to the hobby) would do well to read some old issues of Model Trains.
Tom
I remember it and still have a few of the late 50s early 60s issues my Dad picked up along with MR when I was a kid. It appears that the magazine had an irregular publication with month dates and season dates, Spring 1958 and Summer 1959 for instance in what I have. Maybe it was monthly during the hobby "season" and less frequent in the Spring and Summer. As mentioned by another, it may have ended in 1962. There was also published a Model Trains Yearbook at least in 1963 and 1964. These issues seemed to have material re-published from back issues along with a "Buyers Guide" for new train sets and guide to model railroad clubs by state. Back copies for sale show it at least being published in 1952.
The subject matter certainly wasn't only for the beginner. I remember my Dad building 3-rail turnouts for our Lionel layout then from an article in the Summer 1959 issue. The structure building articles would for sure challenge a lot of modelers today. Track plans and operation were covered also. My favorites include a 4X8 layout series by Earl Cochrane that had commercial switching areas as a theme and used a very nice card order system of operation. High on my list of all-time track plan favorites was a multi-part story by Gil Reid. A 14 X 16 "L" shaped pike, the Ohio River And Wabash, provided two terminals and featured point-to-point operation that allowed for a continuous run allowing a train leaving one city to circle about for how ever many laps and then continue on to the other terminal.
Anyway, there was a lot of exciting information in Model Trains for me at the time when I was just starting out, and it is still fun looking them over even now.
Bob Bochenek
Originally, in the late 40's It was "The HO Monthly".... "HO gauge exclusively", was its cover logo and promise. Lots of early articles by Allen and other famed HO post war modelers.
Then, in the early 50's it became "HO Scale Model Trains" , Same logo but reversed "Exclusively HO scale".
Then with Kalmbach's takeover it became simply "Model Trains". Thanks to model railroad shows, I have an almost complete set of all these early mags up to 1952.
All the various MR mags, just after WWII, constantly beefed about crummy war time paper, paper shortages and no new models even with the coming of peace and the end of rationing, etc.
Many manufacturers also noted that shortages of key items and materials were still a big issue holding them up from new releases as late as 1947.
Model Trains ran a listing for modelers wanting to exchange passes for their model railroads. This got me into this part of the hobby, and I had my name listed a few times over the years, as a teenage model railroader. I received passes from all over the world, with the mailman delivering to me several letters a day after my name was listed. I still have all of my passes, over a thousand in total.
This part of the hobby seems to have disappeared, although there were a few fellows exchanging digital passes not too long ago.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
I remember when the last issue came out and to be truthful like it better than MR. The editor was A. Anderson a long time employee of Kalmbach who was at onetime editor of Trains and then manager editor of MR. I liked his folksy style of writing. Believe he finished up writing student fare before retiring.
Some of the best stuff in those old Model Trains issues were the "Railroad You Can Model" articles.
Linn Westcott, long time editor of MR, once wrote that the reason Model Trains failed, even though it sold fairly well, is that the monthly magazine format was simply not well suited to the problems of a beginner (their target audience) because beginners need to know a little bit about a lot of things all at once, and cannot wait 30 days to learn the next tidbit of information. Westcott said that books or booklets were the better way to bring all those topics, even if lightly covered, to the true beginner.
What I always find interesting about Model Trains is the level of model building familiarity they assumed for their young readers. Even their tinplate articles assumed some basic but sound model building skills - assumed the model railroad novice had come to model trains from an interest in model cars or airplanes or whatever. Some of the "easy" projects in Model Trains would be considered craftsman level stuff today and would qualify for NMRA achievement points!
Dave Nelson
Ah, that's interesting - thanks!
I know some of the material was recycled into Kalmbach pubs in the 1960s and 1970s, because I have found articles I recognize. But I didn't realize it was in a DVD.
The Model Railroad Special Issue and Archive Collection DVD (no longer available from Kalmbach) includes Model Trains Select Stories with some 373 pages from Model Trains.
While aimed at beginners, there was quite a lot of prototype information.
Enjoy
Paul
Kalmbach discontinued Model Trains round about 1962, IIRC . The Portage Hill & Communipaw layout building series began in MT and finished in MR.
Andre
While MR has always been Kalmbach's best-known magazine of model railroading, there was a period in the 1950s and 1960s when Kalmbach published a magazine that seems to have been targeted at beginners, called "Model Trains." I've seen the occasional reference to it, and a couple of years ago I found some loose magazines. I started going through them and found some wonderful E L Moore articles that made it well worth the quarter - things like a very early Central Pacific snowplow, logging bunks, and open-sided excursion cars.
I've never seen a comprehensive list, but I really liked some of the smaller scratchbuilding projects. Does anyone know when it was published, what became of it - and whether kalmbach has ever considered recycling some of the intellectual property in those old issues that might be of interest to today's modeler?