MR's page-count peaked in the mid 1990's at well over 200 pages. Currently you are seeing a page-count of barely 100, a figure not seen since the mid 1970's and likely to drop below 100 any time now. However, the really disturbing fact is that you are at present paying about four times the price per page than just a little over a decade ago.
As far as content is corcerned, while dramatically better recently than under the previous editor's rule, it's still a far cry from what it was in the magazine between the 1950's and about the mid 70's.
CNJ831
Well hold on just a minute. Some of that 200+ page content included coverage of tinplate (which was just fine by me - I love looking at old toy trains). Now there is an entire magazine with that content. Sometimes there would be coverage of garden railroads. Now Kalmbach has an entire magazine with that content. There were lots of track plans back in those days -- now once a year there is Model Railroad Planning. Lavishly photographed layout visits? Now there is the annual Great Model Railroads. There is also a variety of special issues and magazine sized books, relating to the 1950s, industries along the tracks, DCC, and so on. And there is content strictly related to this website and the Dream Plan Build videos.
Now you may gripe that if (like me) you get MR plus GMR plus MRP that means buying 14 magazines a year when you used to buy 12. True enough. At least in the case of MRP the separate format means they can really focus on an issue -- height of benchwork, junctions, bedroom sized layouts, innovative ways of running a staging yard -- that would not be appropriate in a monthly issue of MR. The special issues on the 1950s etc also allow that focus. And from an advertising revenue perspective, the same advertisers in GMR and MRP advertise in the monthly magazine so it is like getting some of them to take out double ads.
My point is that we modelers are hardly being starved for content from Kalmbach. We're up to our armpits in content, and that is even with some of the very fine second and third tier model railroad magazines disappearing on us, alas, so some respected authors are probably trying to mend some fences with MR. But sometimes I do wonder if the cream of the content is being skimmed off by the specialty issues leaving MR with what's left. If the "great" layout visits go into GMR, does that mean the "almost great" ones are in MR?
Dave Nelson
Sir Madogguess you are right, there is a lot less advertising nowadays , owe to the internet
I guess the internet is part of it but generally speaking--a lot of those were mom/pop operations as well that didn't last long/or got bought out/folded------
The content has kind of shrunk but they are getting a little more into the scratch/bashing again---which I like to see some more of.
And there is that product placement thing going----
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
There is less content today than in past years. I just looked at some issues from the 70's and most of them had 10 or so articles, as opposed to today's 6 or 7. Paint Shop, Student Fare and Events are also gone.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
I'm just happy when the new issue comes. Sure, there were a lot more pages back then, but like everything else, it comes down to $$$. They STILL put out an excellent magazine. Kudos to Kalmbach!
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Mark,
guess you are right, there is a lot less advertising nowadays , owe to the internet...
But the perception is that you get a lot less, not only by pages, but by content.
The reduction in the number of pages is mostly/all a reflection of the drop in advertising volume. I understand Model Railroader/Kalmbach has the highest rates for advertising of the model/toy railroading magazines published in the U.S.
But look at it this way. The January 1962 issue had only 82 pages, 20 percent fewer than this month's issue, and there were NO colored photographs.
Mark
I just dug out some old (really old) copies of MODEL RAILROADER and while leafing thru them, I thought I was holding a completely different magazine in my hands.
The average copy in the 1980´s and 1990´s had between 180 and 200 pages, so about twice as much as today, more how to do features than today. OK, today, all the pics are in color and a lot crisper than before.
I don´t mean that MR is not as good as it used to be - it is just, IMHO, a very different magazine, reflecting a general trend of being less "thorough". Am I wrong?