Upon reflection, I have to confess I really miss Model Trains Magazine. Now, perhaps it’s just a nostalgia thing, or maybe it just appealed to my simplistic mind, or maybe I don’t want too much reality in my models and modeling, but prefer the more “perfect world” ideal. Or maybe it was because I was a kid and the content was more accessible to me. For whatever reason(s), I loved the magazine including the AHC ads!
As for the scale drawings, Alan J Brewster and I believe Harold Russell did most of those. I always wondered how that was arranged. Were these guys contracted? I don’t think they were Kalmbach employees. Were they freelancers and just drew a piece of equipment and submitted it? I’m curious.
Jim (with a nod to Mies Van Der Rohe)
BNSF UP and others modelerThey pulled out many of the things that bugged me about the older magazines, such as pages and pages of ads
Those ads were what helped me get started. I was in Germany (1971, in the army) when I started in this hobby. Those ads really helped me find out what was available. Plus I ordered from those ads for 2 1/2 years until I returned to the U.S.
Frankly, I looked forward to the ads as much as they rest of the magazine - still do. Like others have mentioned, I loved the AHC ads.
Paul
I don't have solid memories of the old MR in the mid to late 80's. My job left me sleep deprived most of the time. It seem to me there were a lot more rolling stock produced for various MR clubs.
It wasn't casual Friday in the old model railroading magazines.
I don't think I will be sent back to moderation if I mention a site that has defunct model railroad magazines. There are many photos of model railroaders in coat and tie or tie and vest. Were there blue color model railroaders in the 30's and 40's or were they all bankers and lawyers?
http://magazine.trainlife.com/mb_1941_2/
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Uncle_Bob Those ads that you're glad are gone paid Kalmbach's bills. Without money coming in, they can't pay staff, advertise, buy paper and ink for magazines, etc. Without these things, the publisher fails, their magazines cease production, and we end up with nothing but the past. Please remember that.
I understand. I am happy with the reduction of ads, which does not mean total elimination is demanded. They still do have some ads, which definitely helps MRR. Those don't bug me (just my wallet). Also, there is nothing wrong with being happy and positive with the changes made in the magazine, is there?
I'm beginning to realize that Windows 10 and sound decoders have a lot in common. There are so many things you have to change in order to get them to work the way you want.
BRAKIEIndeed.. His layout is intact in a museum in Greenville,Ohio. A tribute to a true master modeler.
.
No kidding! I need to make sure I see that next time I am in Ohio.
Thank you for that news.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
BNSF UP and others modeler Having been in the hobby for only 5 or 6 years, the only reason that I can contribute this thread is because I have been lucky enough to be given both older or modern issues, or else found them for dirt cheap. I don't even have a subscription! (Although I did sign up for a super good rate for a years worth of magazines in June). I may be playing devil's advocate here, but I have actually been pleasantly suprised when comparing mid 80's, 90's, and early 2000's magazines with the modern ones. They pulled out many of the things that bugged me about the older magazines, such as pages and pages of ads, black and white pictures, and grainy pictures. Now, we have short, concise magazines with a good mix of product reviews, layout tours, DCC, painting, or other project guides, and quality images that I can often glean ideas or techniques from. Just what I like. If there is anything I DO wish they still had in the magazine, it would be more scale drawings of railcars and photo contests. Maybe this thread is taken seriously by the magazine producers and we get some more of the old stuff back? Who knows... Just my HO and
Having been in the hobby for only 5 or 6 years, the only reason that I can contribute this thread is because I have been lucky enough to be given both older or modern issues, or else found them for dirt cheap. I don't even have a subscription! (Although I did sign up for a super good rate for a years worth of magazines in June).
I may be playing devil's advocate here, but I have actually been pleasantly suprised when comparing mid 80's, 90's, and early 2000's magazines with the modern ones. They pulled out many of the things that bugged me about the older magazines, such as pages and pages of ads, black and white pictures, and grainy pictures. Now, we have short, concise magazines with a good mix of product reviews, layout tours, DCC, painting, or other project guides, and quality images that I can often glean ideas or techniques from. Just what I like.
If there is anything I DO wish they still had in the magazine, it would be more scale drawings of railcars and photo contests. Maybe this thread is taken seriously by the magazine producers and we get some more of the old stuff back? Who knows...
Just my HO and
I miss Paint Shop and the Railroad You Can Model articles, as well as the longer, more descriptive articles that ran in the '70 and '80s. I also miss the big ads that used to run here, as you may have guessed: Standard Hobby Supply, Hobbies for Men (THAT would go over well these days!), America's Hobby Center, Long's Drug Store, that other one in the Seattle area, Train Station something-or-other, and the brass ads (including Don's Train Depot). They gave people ideas about what was available and what they could aspire to buy someday -- and maybe their dream layouts would appear in MR.
Model Railroad Planning is geared more towards why I would by regular MR, but its only published annually. I haven't missed a copy of MRP, but my purchasing of MR has gotten spotty.
- Douglas
SeeYou190 Ben King was always amazing. . I could never do what he has done. . -Kevin .
Ben King was always amazing.
I could never do what he has done.
Indeed.. His layout is intact in a museum in Greenville,Ohio. A tribute to a true master modeler.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
OK, I don't know how old you are, but not everything can, or even should, be reduced to a "short concise" soundbite.........
Back in the day, printing color photography was expensive, and black and wihte photography was still common for lots of stuff.
There was no internet, so those pages of ads were how manufacturers comunicated with customers in between the printing of anual catalogs........
But what would I know, I was running a train department in a hobby shop at age 20 in 1977......
And I have every copy of Model Railroader from about 1960 to now.........
Sheldon
A Railroad You Can Model still shows up as a feature in MRP, so it isn't completely gone like Paint Shop or Student Fare.
A railroad you can model and the scratchbuilding articles.
Chuck
Modeling the Motor City
Sewell.
Always took an interest in articles, modelers, pictures and stories of that past Railroad owned Town.
TF
There have been a few writers over the years that I’ve quite admired whose presence I miss. George Allen: I’ve always admired the style and approach he used to present the construction of the Tuxedo Junction layout he built with Ernie Huebner. His short-lived 50,000 Spikes series was great too. E. L. Moore: Great story teller, and I loved his way of getting the most from the least with admirable results. Always could be counted on for a fun project that I felt I could build. D. Derek Verner: He pushed the boundaries of what could be done, but I always came away from his stories with a feeling that I could do them too. His Lido Theater comes to mind. Bill Schopp: Although in his later years he was at RMC, he was featured now and then in MR. He even showed up once in a most excellent Tuxedo Junction story with George Allen. He was some sort of mad scientist / renaissance man of model railroading. Robert E. Gilbert: Maybe he was more of a Model Trains writer when Kalmbach owned it, but his stories seemed full of interesting things. I remember a story called ‘A changeable railroad’ that appeared in MR in the sixties – a fascinating project. Malcolm Furlow: The San Juan Central series was excellent. Ben King: Loved his photography. He even wrote an article on how to build a panoramic (?) camera. I never thought I could emulate his work, but it was highly inspirational. Linn Westcott: Ok, he was MR’s legendary editor, but he was their best writer in that he was a skilled modeller, creative, and forward thinking. Raymond Frankenberger: I’m going to assume Kalmbach’s Model Trains fits in the umbrella, so I’ll say Raymond Frankenberger does too since he appeared there a lot. Interesting projects and great presentation style. No doubt there’s more, but these writers come readily to mind.
http://www.30squaresofontario.blogspot.ca/
Remember Cheap Hobbies ? They committed mail fraud and went to jail. Remembering sending notice to MR about them before they were prosicuted, they said they would pull the ads if they were doing things illegal. Should have kept my notification of court procedings from the attorney general of whatever state they were homed in as a memento because I knew I would never see my $200 again.
This may sound weird but when I traveled for business around the country I always brought along the latest copy of MR. Why? Because I always had free time in the evening and I would look for the nearest hobby shops from my hotel, based on the listings in the back of each issue. It made it fun to explore what each shop stocked. I bought a lot of Blue box kits in my travels. Always liked viewing the store model rr displays and sometimes club layouts as well.
Enzoamps Been reading MR for 60 years or so. I would save my allowance and buy a new Athearn rubber band drive loco, and the first thing I looked at each issue was the Pacific Fast Mail ad on the rear cover. MY cheap litttle engines were all I could afford, and here were these wonderful brass models I knew I could never afford. But I read it cover to cover, tiny ads and all. And those big two page warehouse listings, I read each item, thinking how it might work on my layout.
Been reading MR for 60 years or so. I would save my allowance and buy a new Athearn rubber band drive loco, and the first thing I looked at each issue was the Pacific Fast Mail ad on the rear cover. MY cheap litttle engines were all I could afford, and here were these wonderful brass models I knew I could never afford.
But I read it cover to cover, tiny ads and all. And those big two page warehouse listings, I read each item, thinking how it might work on my layout.
You bet! Those old AHC warehouse ads that went on for pages were chock full of every train item you could imagine. They supplied a young mind's planning and dreaming on a tiny allowance.
Conversely, I went to Trainworld specifically because of the memories of of those multi page black and white ads.
When I was in high school, every month .I made up a shopping list every month from the "Hobbies For Men" advertisement.
I never actually placed an order.
chutton01 Mister Mikado Seeing what IHC had for sale was just as exciting to me as the articles. (I think I have the name right--IHC, International Hobby Center mail order, someone correct me if I am mistaken.) Remember those prices? Athearn engines for $10 or so, freight cars for $1 and snap track for loose change. That was some layout I built in my imagination gazing at all those ads, which made up more than half of a very thick magazine. Did you mean America's Hobby Center (AHC), which in the late 1970s/early 1980s (when I began reading MR) usually had 4 pages toward the front of the magazine. I occasionally visited their store in lower Mid-Town Manhattan - there's a thread about them on this forum somewhere in the past.The only other wonky ads that stick out in my mind from that era was "Balls Of Brass" and "Patty's Corner"...
Mister Mikado Seeing what IHC had for sale was just as exciting to me as the articles. (I think I have the name right--IHC, International Hobby Center mail order, someone correct me if I am mistaken.) Remember those prices? Athearn engines for $10 or so, freight cars for $1 and snap track for loose change. That was some layout I built in my imagination gazing at all those ads, which made up more than half of a very thick magazine.
Did you mean America's Hobby Center (AHC), which in the late 1970s/early 1980s (when I began reading MR) usually had 4 pages toward the front of the magazine. I occasionally visited their store in lower Mid-Town Manhattan - there's a thread about them on this forum somewhere in the past.The only other wonky ads that stick out in my mind from that era was "Balls Of Brass" and "Patty's Corner"...
That was it! Good ol' AHC!
I used to pore through the Model Railroader B&W ads while riding the bus to school in 1962. Seeing what IHC had for sale was just as exciting to me as the articles. (I think I have the name right--IHC, International Hobby Center mail order, someone correct me if I am mistaken.) Remember those prices? Athearn engines for $10 or so, freight cars for $1 and snap track for loose change. That was some layout I built in my imagination gazing at all those ads, which made up more than half of a very thick magazine.
-Rob
arbe1948Along The Right-Of-Way
I had completely forgotten about this one. You are right, that was a good department to have around.
Reader since 1957 or so:
Bull Session.
Along The Right-Of-Way
Model building articles. (like Jack Work)
Railroad You Can Model.
An observation.
It seemed that years ago, there was an emphasis on building, and because few modelers built much in styrene, they got pretty inventive with their materials eg: orange juice cans for oil tanks. Long about the 90s to the early 00s there seemed to be just showcasing superb layouts. Now we’re building again, only this time there’s more styrene. And that’s ok.
I miss scale drawings
BB diesel superdetailing
but by and large, I can’t complain at all and the current magazine is just fine. I believe the current editor Hal revived the “model railroading is fun” slogan. As long as we don’t forget that, itll all be just fine.
I miss the following, not ncessarily in this order.
1. Paint shop
2. There is a protoype for everything
3. Scale drawings
4. Profiles
MisterBeasleyBelieve it or not, I miss a lot of the advertising.
" I'm a Tinsmith, ..and a good one" !
Anybody else remember that add. It must have ran for at least 30 years !
I also liked the scale drawing's .
Rust...... It's a good thing !