Just got home from the grocery store. I got excited when I saw a new Kalmbach book on the shelf.....BEST OF INDUSTRIES! Cool! Glancing through I saw it was an expensive ($16.99) rehash of MR articles. Nothing new! Just the same stuff that was in my past MR's. Bummed me out!
Am I wrong to have expected something new to help my modeling or to be exciting reading? Seems to me a big ripoff.
oldline1
Everything they publish is a collection of articles. Same for trains.
It's only a ripoff if you buy it. Otherwise, it's a collection of good articles that lets you toss (or never buy) a stack of magazines full of outdated articles and old ads. And $16 is half a freight car or a third of a Tortoise.
We have a similar situation here in the UK with a certain magazine. The good bits from over two years in a bookazine format. I do not buy the monthly magazine, but sometimes I will buy the bookazine if I like the articles.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
Well, it's actually a good deal if you don't have a subscription. And it's not all of their books that are excerpts of MR.
Simon
Ken Patterson calls model railroading the greatest hobby in the world but you would never know it reading this forum. We need a Grumpy Old Men sub forum where we can complain about the expense, crap they buy off ebay, books titled BEST OF and the Trains.com site.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Kalmbach's 'Guide To Industries Series' labeled books are (were? Are they releasing new ones?), as well as 'Industries Along The Tracks' (this I think they did only 4 of, the last one I have is from 2010) were not just reprinted rehashes AFAIK (some of the archived images may have been use in the various MR columns over the decades, but the books were new info).
"Best of.." suggests a sampling, at which the savvy shopper would ask himself...of what? A competitor's holdings? Articles that they DIDN'T ever publish? Articles that they DID publish and that got a lot of positive feedback?
I dunno, but if I were looking for some concise reference material on 'industries', I would rather have that publication than to have to go through five years' worth of magazines, which I don't happen to keep anyway.
Me personally, I've only been a subscriber for 2 or 3 years. So if/when I buy a Kalmbach publication, it's always new to me. I don't buy many though, seems like I could get some advice for FREE on the internet than spend 20$ on a book that MIGHT help me.
JJF
Prototypically modeling the Great Northern in Minnesota with just a hint of freelancing.
Yesterday is History.
Tomorrow is a Mystery.
But today is a Gift, that is why it is called the Present.
Like the line from the movie Roadhouse, "opinions vary".
And there are lots of valid opinions expressed above. We all have to decide what is "valuable" to us.
I have nearly every issue of Model Railroader from 1953 to now, and a few even older issues. And I subscribe to the archive. A good search engine would be nice.
But I consider both my collection and the archive to be valuable tools, and storage space is not an issue for me.
I have a number of other Kalmbach books as well, but by no means all of them.
The easy access argument has merit.
I have a similar collection of RMC and the NMRA publications.........
And then there are the Walthers Catalogs, and the other books........
In my experiance, only some of the information becomes too "dated", but again modeling styles and opinions vary.
Sheldon
I learned after buying two scenery issues, each with super tree article repeats, that these were repackages. I was away from the hobby for a long time and did not realize the special issues cherry picked from old articles. Aside from my rant on referencing paint that is not made anymore I can see some value in targeted articles, just so they don't keep repeating same articles and maybe some footnotes where referenced materials are not with us today.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Like the line from the movie Roadhouse, "opinions vary". And there are lots of valid opinions expressed above. We all have to decide what is "valuable" to us. I have nearly every issue of Model Railroader from 1953 to now, and a few even older issues. And I subscribe to the archive. A good search engine would be nice. But I consider both my collection and the archive to be valuable tools, and storage space is not an issue for me. I have a number of other Kalmbach books as well, but by no means all of them. The easy access argument has merit. I have a similar collection of RMC and the NMRA publications......... And then there are the Walthers Catalogs, and the other books........ In my experiance, only some of the information becomes too "dated", but again modeling styles and opinions vary. Sheldon
I'm with you Sheldon. If it worked then it'll work now. Other than some advances in electro-stuff (DCC), the track-laying, benchwork building, and scenery techniques are still valid.
I get a walthers catolouge every 3 years. Other than rolling stock and locos, most things are pretty consistently avaliable. It's not like woodland scenic is going to stop making ground foam!
JDawg ATLANTIC CENTRAL Like the line from the movie Roadhouse, "opinions vary". And there are lots of valid opinions expressed above. We all have to decide what is "valuable" to us. I have nearly every issue of Model Railroader from 1953 to now, and a few even older issues. And I subscribe to the archive. A good search engine would be nice. But I consider both my collection and the archive to be valuable tools, and storage space is not an issue for me. I have a number of other Kalmbach books as well, but by no means all of them. The easy access argument has merit. I have a similar collection of RMC and the NMRA publications......... And then there are the Walthers Catalogs, and the other books........ In my experiance, only some of the information becomes too "dated", but again modeling styles and opinions vary. Sheldon I'm with you Sheldon. If it worked then it'll work now. Other than some advances in electro-stuff (DCC), the track-laying, benchwork building, and scenery techniques are still valid. I get a walthers catolouge every 3 years. Other than rolling stock and locos, most things are pretty consistently avaliable. It's not like woodland scenic is going to stop making ground foam!
rrebell Walthers used to be a true distributor but that started to change when they bought out Lifelike. Before it was a treasure trove of stuff available and you needed to buy their catalog and if you were into restoring stuff you needed the old editions too but not even close now and many companys with a lot of product not even mentioned.
Walthers used to be a true distributor but that started to change when they bought out Lifelike. Before it was a treasure trove of stuff available and you needed to buy their catalog and if you were into restoring stuff you needed the old editions too but not even close now and many companys with a lot of product not even mentioned.
If we go back tothe beginning, Walthers was a manufacturer first, then both a manufacturer and a major distributor.
Then in the late 70's, long before buying LifeLike, they started buying smaller companies, TruScale/Silver Streak, Ulrich, TrainsMinature, and others.
Then they started more "contract manufacturing" overseas rather than actually making stuff.
By the time they bought LifeLike they were clearly on a path to minimize being a distributor and be mainly a manufacturer/importer.
Starting way back when they bought TrainsMinature and expanded their line of plastic freight cars they began to downplay Athearn as a product line in the catalog.
A decission that helped drive Horizon's choice for single point distribution of Athearn when they took over Ahearn.
While Walthers remains an important source, they are not what they once were in terms of distribution, and I believe that is their choice.
When I started out in HO scale modeling back in 2004, I didn't know any better so I bought everything from Walthers. I would call about once a month with a long list of items and purchase them at MSRP. I eagerly bought their catalog every year and saved the prior catalogs.
When the guys at my LHS realized what I was doing, they offered me 20% off MSRP for anything that I bought from the store. I also saved the shipping charges by bypassing Walthers.
At that point, I got a call from Amy in Walthers Customer Service who offered me discounts if I stayed with Walthers. But, I never took her up on the offer.
Rich
Alton Junction
Perhaps Kalmbach was helping people new to the hobby and didn't have years of magazines laying around to use? Regardless of their reason(s), a person does not need a lot of books to really get started in the hobby. Most any books by Jeff Wilson provide a solid start. No need to get overwhelmed!
Well, I'm not even sure there is much of a market left for these books in general, in paper format anyway. Something tells me they will be available "free" soon with a bunch of ads around them. Just google any MR topic, and see what pops up. Of course, not all of it is good, but there are more and more quality resources out there available for free, including a lot of stuff from the manufacturers.