The Feb. CTT cover reads...

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by LS1Heli

Could careless about them not mentioning crap from MTH or K-line

Does the brand loyalty schtick not get old to you?[zzz] I'm not trying to be a jerk, but give it a rest already!

[msacco]

My how this thread has grown.
Glad this member has been barred for a bit. HIs assumptions are ridiculous. Kudos to Bob and Neil for putting up with this garbage and keep up the good work. I love the magazine and have always appreciated Bob's honest and upfront reviews.

Mike S.

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

We get locomotives and other train products to review in three ways.

First, a manufacturer sends us something to review. We evaluate the product and afterward it goes back to the manufacturer, unless the manufacturer tells us to keep it (about 90 to 95 percent of the locomotives are sent back). Some manufacturers send us lots of trains, others send a few, and some don't send any, even though we ask.

Second, if we sense there's a "hole" in our review lineup for an upcoming issue we go out and buy a train to fill the hole. We buy locally and through the mail. By "hole," I mean situations where the reviews for a particular issue are unbalanced (all steamers and no diesels; all expensive engines and no inexpensive engines; or all the same brand).

Sometimes we can't fill the "hole" and have to publish what we have. Manufacturers don't release new locomotives just for our benefit, so we are at the mercy of their production and delivery schedules.

The third way we get trains for review is if a staff member happens to buy a newly released locomotive from a local hobby shop or by mail for his personal use (of course he keeps it after the review). For example, the Lionel Canadian Pacific grain train reviewed a few months ago belongs to one of our editors.

Lastly, if something is "hot," we go out and buy one. Recent examples are the Ready-Made Toys Beep, and the Lionel 0-6-0T, LionelMaster SD70MAC, and Lionel milk reefer.

Please note that ads in CTT are priced by size and use of color. A half-page manufacturer's color ad costs the same as a half-page color ad for Joe's Hobby Shop.

So those who suggest that CTT is in a manufacturer's pocket are wrong. The big retailers, like TrainWorld/TrainLand, Charles Ro, Joe Grzyboski, year in and year out are the biggest advertisers in CTT.

Sincerely,
Neil Besougloff
editor

[Kooljock1]

I think I can weigh in on the Payola/Plugola vs. Product For Review issue. I have to sign an affidavit several times a year proclaiming that I have not accepted money for playing records. (And for the record, the FCC form still uses the phrases "records" and "sock hops"...very quaint!)

The way payola/plugola works in radio is this: a record company pays under the table a radio station program director to add a song to the stations' playlist. This is called payola/

If I've been hired to DJ a dance, and I get payed on the number of people who attend, and I use my show to plug said dance, this would be plugola. If the local tire store gives me a deal on a set of Hakkapelitas in expectation that I'll plug the tire store on the air...that is Plugola.

CTT recieves production samples from manufacturers. CTT authors are then free to review, pick, pan, or not review the item. They are not paid by the manufacturer to give a good review.

By the same token, radio stations recieve new CD's from the record companies all the time. The station then chooses to play or not play the songs.

If there seems to be more MTH/K-LINE/ATLAS reviews than LIONEL reviews, then perhaps you should contact LIONEL.

Jon [8D]

[Frank53]

I find it interesting that on this forum and in North Korea, there is some perception that the publications are being "paid off" in locomotives for writing reviews. It really is a hilarious assumption.

If someone wants a shot at having a review of their new $1600.00 loco in any magazine, it is incumbent on them to send a sample. Big Jim wants the mags to go out and buy one, which is absurd.

Should Road and Track go out and buy a Ferrari so they can write a report on it?

[Bob Keller]

BigJim has been blocked from posting for 30 days for failure to play well with others.

Please note that I'm not deleting anything he's written. I am reacting to complaints from forum members.

[Anonymous]

For two short weeks I was the proud owner of a cattle car/yard. I remembered it fondly from my uncles AF layout. When I read the article I thought better dump this puppy on Ebay before everyone reads the article :) Dave

[Anonymous]

Oh, Richard A,

I'm with you, bud--on both counts.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BigJim

QUOTE: Regarding payment and rates: Sorry BigJim, we pay probably the highest rates around and pay for articles on acceptance (payment for photos for Photo Album are on publication).

Actually Bob,
If you go back and look, the pay reference was meant for Dennis B., but thanks for the information.

????? Call me dense, but your reply to Bob makes no sense whatsoever.

I went back and looked and this is what you said:

QUOTE: What and pay CTT to publish something that I wrote? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Then, I have heard that the pay is pretty low if you get paid at all..

Can you explain exactly how the pay reference refers to me?

[BigJim]

QUOTE: Regarding payment and rates: Sorry BigJim, we pay probably the highest rates around and pay for articles on acceptance (payment for photos for Photo Album are on publication).

Actually Bob,
If you go back and look, the pay reference was meant for Dennis B., but thanks for the information.

QUOTE: Oh, and most of the manufacturers have discovered the simple truth: Send a locomotive in for a review. It will get reviewed. Don't send it in and it probably won't.

Bob,
Let me ask you this. This statement reads as though a review is similar to payola in radio. Suppose a manufacturer doesn't send in a "HOT" item. Do you not try to go out and find one to review yourself? In other words, can you say, we need to review this model now because it is in the news but so-and-so hasn't sent one in yet or maybe never will. Can you go find one at a hobby shop to do a review?

One more thing that I just thought about concerning the "Dud" "Fire Car".
Mr. Grams states that "What if the fire is a block away from the tracks? Does someone quickly build a spur to it?"
The answer is;
Thanks to K-Line and "Super Streets" you can now run your "Fire Car" directly to the fire and hope that it doen't shoot "DUDS". Or should that be "SUDS"?

[LS1Heli]

I personally enjoy CTT. Could careless about them not mentioning crap from MTH or K-line.

Keep up the good work CTT.

[Richard A]

Bob Keller,

I don't know whether you drew the short straw or not, but I hope you hang around as (one of?) the Administrator(s) for a long time. Your information and CANDOR is welcomed and refreshing. [No disparagemnt intended toward any of your predecessors!]

[Richard A]

QUOTE: Richard,
The way the cover reads, it makes absolutely no distinction about eras. Only certain manufacturers are noted. As presented in the body of the magazine, the authors text is miniscule compared to the space provided the authors choices. I would suspect that most of you simply scan through your magazine before sitting down to absorb every word, thus reading the smileys and frowns before reading the text.

Big Jim,

Thanks for your "clarification". You've helped me tremendously to properly qualify any future post of yours that I may accidently read.

[Dave Farquhar]

I'll chime in here, since a lot of people don't seem to know how magazines work (or are supposed to work, since there are exceptions). I am not, and never have been, an employee of Kalmbach, the publisher of CTT. I am a published author and have edited a couple of small publications in the past.

There is a perception that magazines do whatever their advertisers want. Most magazines do everything they can to keep this from happening. Sometimes they go to the extent of putting the editorial staff in an entirely different building from the advertising staff. It's very common for them to be housed in different sections of the building with different elevators. That way, if an advertiser calls up its account rep and says, "I want you to march down to [editor's name]'s office and tell him if he doesn't print a retraction, you'll never see another dollar from me!" the account rep can honestly say, "Well, I see him once a year at the company Christmas party." The company may pull its ads anyway. This is a problem all magazines and newspapers face. Most companies end up eventually advertising again, because it's not like there are 72 other places out there to run ads. So a magazine like CTT actually has the upper hand when it comes to being objective.

Now, some smaller magazines have staff members who are both on the editorial and advertising side. In these instances there's a lot more room for conflicts of interest.

Reviews are in the eye of the beholder, which is the eternal struggle. Some people just want a piece to run well and as long as it vaguely resembles a train, they're perfectly happy. Others want the piece to be an exact scale replica of the original and don't care much how it runs because they don't even have a layout to begin with. Some want both, and they want it to run on O-31 track (O-27 is for sissies, after all) and they want it to cost $199, but they'll wait for the blowout so they can get it for $68.

Probably your expectations are going to be different from those of the reviewer. But if the reviewer is careful, the review will contain enough information to let you decide whether you should buy a piece or not. The reviewer's job isn't to agree with you, nor is it to do your thinking for you. His/her job is to give you enough knowledge to let you make an informed decision.

I hope I don't sound too much like I'm kissing up. I'm just tired of seeing CTT being dragged through the mud by someone who doesn't know much about how journalism works.

[Bob Keller]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BigJim

QUOTE: What and pay CTT to publish something that I wrote? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Then, I have heard that the pay is pretty low if you get paid at all.

It would be of benefit to all of us in the hobby for the major publications to speak up in their reviews and take the manufacturers to task about some of the latest glaring flaws that have shown up models lately. Flaws that could have been easily avoided by manufacturers that cared about their product!
OH, I forgot, the magazines didn't receive any of those for testing. How convienient.

Regarding payment and rates: Sorry BigJim, we pay probably the highest rates around and pay for articles on acceptance (payment for photos for Photo Album are on publication). Maybe you're thinking of when Myron owned OGR and he'd pay after publication, if you submitted a bill to him.

Regarding reviews: I'll give you the benfit of a doubt, since you clearly don't have any idea of how we go about the review process. A fraction of readers want a review that says something is garbage even when it isn't.

The bottom line is that most everything is made to the same standard of quality, which is generally pretty good.

I've written about Lionel locomotives that needed to be pushed to get through curves, MTH O-72 locomotives that derailed on O-72 and multi-unit diesels that had motors that didn't work; K-Line locomotives with crappy paint jobs and wheels that fall off the tender and more. You simply need to read the reviews to discover what I find wrong with the products.

My mandate when I was hired was to write reviews for the reader without regard to advertiser influence. I've done that. I've also received complaints from manufacturers because I've pointed out faults and we've lost advertising because I've pointed out those faults. While I'll request additional samples if I encounter a major problem, we don't guarantee reviews, nor do we give the manufacturers the 'right" to pull a product we find defective.

You don't like the reviews in OGR or CTT, get the engines, test them yourself, and published them on your own website. Or send them to the club publications of LOTS, the LCCA, or TCA.

Oh, and most of the manufacturers have discovered the simple truth: Send a locomotive in for a review. It will get reviewed. Don't send it in and it probably won't.

Bob Keller

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