This is the third installment of the book club, and the idea for those who have not been following it: thanks to the new All Access Pass Digital Archive, many forum members now have ready access to every issue of MR ever published. We are taking advantage of that by choosing a past issue every Monday, reading it, and then discussing anything and everything that catches our interest, from articles to ads, editorials to classified, to cover photos, just as you would in a book club.
And by the way everyone is welcome to contribute and comment, whether you have (or can borrow) the hard copy, subscribe to the All Access Pass, or have the DVD version from a few years ago.
Following a suggestion from Randy ("rrinker") to the effect that he recently read a 2005 issue and was surprised by how much he had forgotten was in it, I decided for the third installment that we'd go back just ten years to February 2005. My intent is to bounce around the entire "library" if you will, but picking 2005 should enable more folks to take part in the book club because more will have it on their shelves.
For the time being however I think a ten year old lookback is about as "new" as we will be featuring in the book club, unless there is interest in more recent issues being book club fodder.
A few reactions and comments of my own to kick things off. This issue contains one of those base-line articles of reference material that many modelers will want to have ready access to: Kevin J. Holland's article "Modeler's Guide to Lightweight Passenger Trucks." This article goes into the finer points and some subtle distinctions that an earlier era of models mostly ignored. I suspect it could have gone on at even greater length.
I'd also mention Tom Piccirillo's article on modifying the popular Atlas passenger station, and as the author notes the structure has been available in HO, O and N. A nice example of how a relatively few modest changes to an ultra-familiar kit can make it look quite different. And excellent workmanship as well.
A great photo appears in Trackside Photos: Mike Danneman's model and photo of his N scale version of Big Ten Curve. Astounding realism.
Well those are my immediate reactions; if I have more I'll post them as the week progresses
Dave Nelson
Well, it wasn;t so much about how much I had 'forgotten' but rather that wow, 10 years have come and gone since then. Makes me think of Pink Floyd: "And then one day you find, 10 years have got behind you.." Downloading now - at least this one is easy to get to in the iPad app = they REALLY need to fix that so you don;t have to scroll through every issue in reverse date order, it takes FORVER to get to the 40's and 50's!
Tom Piccirillo is probably better known as the president of Micro Mark.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I see that Standard Hobby was still in business in this issue. Standard is where all of my track and cork road bed came from. However, my purchases from Standard probably ended in 1990 or so.
On page 40, in David Popp's article: Step by Step, he talks about car cards and naming places. This triggered my purchase of Car Cards, filling them out for all my freight cars, making sure no duplicates car numbers existed in my roster and fixing the numbers, where there were duplicates. I got this much done and dropped the idea for a few more years and continued working on my layout.
I remember seeing the cover photo, thinking it was a photo from Koester's Allegheny Midland, which I believe may have been gone by this time.
About the time of this issue, I decided to go back to R/C airplanes and the layout sat for 6 years while my interest focused on R/C. Since 2011 I have been involved in both hobbies at the same time.
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
I usually recognize an issue as soon as I start flipping through it but this one completely escapes me.
You hit the nail on the head with the Pink Floys lyrics, Randy! I'm always amazed when I realize just how fast time slips away. I have a habit of writing the date in an inconspicuous area, say inside an engine shell when I install a decoder or an inside wall of a structure or on the benchwork if I make a modification under there and I shake my head in disbelief when I realize that ten, twenty, THIRTY years have gone by. Shorter of breath, one day closer to death..
I had new shingles put on last year and the roofer asked me if I wanted 25 year or 30 year shingles. I told him that I'll either be 95 or 100 then, do you really think it matters to me? Put the 25 year ones on—I'll let somebody else worry about replacing them!
I noticed on page 9 that there was an announcement for TWO new hobby shops! Another sign of the times was 5 columns devoted to coming events... remember that?
The passenger car truck article (all SIX pages) was something I had been looking for. I printed it for future reference.
I recall all the hooplah over the Trix NYC caboose and the Terry Thompson article about making all the modifications makes me wonder why anyone would even buy one? Just scratchbuild it. (Which reminds me, where is the True Line Trains NYC caboose that was announced how long ago?)
The Sound Advice article was helpful. And I noticed the emphasis on Turning The Volume Down in the article.
The days of those big-fat issues are sure over! Today it's "log on to... for more information"
NP2626, Standard Hobby Supply was my go-to source when I was building my first BIG layout in the early 1980s.
I have to admit the All Access Pass is something I am getting a great deal of enjoyment out of... Ed
I would have thought this thread line to have been more popular than it seems it is!
Thanks for keeping this going. I've enjoyed this way of gradually seeing what's in the library (or some of it). Of course, at one per week this could last awhile, which is good. For me, it's like getting an extra 4 MRs a month.
I especially enjoyed the article on lightweight passenger trucks. I liked the depth of info. The article on getting DCC in various locos caught my eye but in 4 pages it was a little limited in what it revealed, though it's a subject that could fill a book.
One curiosity on mechanics. When I zoom a page by clicking it I can just scroll it up and down, but not move it horizontally with the mousepad. I swear I did it earlier so don't know what I'm doing differently. I'd like to be ble to zoom, then scroll around the whole 2-page layout. On WIndows 8.1, if that's relevant.
Looking forward to next week's featured issue.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
peahrens, Can you grab the page by clicking on it with the right mouse button, holding it in and move the page around? I can scroll up and down with scroll knob or move the page around by grabbing.
Dave, I wanted to PM you; but, apparently you have it so you can't receive PMs. I was wondering if you would be O.K. with me picking a year/month to take a look at and do a similar study like your doing?
Mark
One thing that caught my eye was the big ad for Walthers Modulars, which we now know were a bit of a 'flash in the pan'. Great concept but poorly executed and way over priced.
I also noted the extensive 'Coming Events' listing. Are there that many fewer events these days or is MR being disregarded as a listing site? If so, Kalmbach should do something about it.
Dave, if I can make an observation based on my own preferences, I get a much greater kick out of looking at the issues from the 30s thru the 50s. I'm not sure how many others share that feeling. Perhaps when you do another older issue, if there is a greater response, that might suggest something.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
A couple of nice articles are noticed. One was about changing the appearance of the Atlas station by filling in the roof gables, which Dave mentioned.
A second was about painting tips showing how to use blue painters tape and burnishing tools to seal the tape edges.
I saw a ad for Mantua "classics" by Model Power. Sadly, they never really did much with the Mantua line, lets hope MRC does a better job. IHC still had a 2 page ad.
MR page count was down to 132 from its 200+ hey day.
Jim
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Wednesday can be a slow day on the Forum. It'll pick up.
Atlas has a 2 page spread inside the front cover. How did that N scale Shay turn out?
It was a long time since Athearn did any O (1:50, but close enough) but the Ford C trucks and fire trucks look spiffy.
Too bad the Walthers Modulars didn't catch on. About the time I needed some, unobtanium. You did get a bunch of stuff for $9.98. I don't think they were over-priced, just not enough people building stuff still, even in 2005.
I did end up with a pair of P1K Monon RS2s and a B-mann Shay. Must've still had a little money then...
Dave,
The Coming Events column fell victim to the internet's timeliness, but I thought it was continued online. Guess not as I don't see a link to it here on the website.
Andy Schnur's layout is impressive, but I liked Howard Scodras's great urban scenes just as much.
DecoderPro gets a mention in DCC Corner, so I must be about 10 years behind since I just installed DecoderPro3 last week after thinking about it for years.
Danneman's Big Ten Curves pic is hot! But the other 3 pics in Trackside are outstanding, too.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Mike:
The link to the Coming Events listings is under 'Resources' on the upper right at the top of the page.
I take back what I said about MR having lost its place as a site for promoting events. When I look at the on-site listings today there are just as many if not more events listed as there were in Feb 2005. I just wish the Canadian guys would do a better job of promoting their events on MR.
Thanks for the tip on where to find it. I must've looked everywhere except top of the page
I kind of thought it would be under News & Reviews or Community up near there or down in the black box at the bottom. Maybe having another link or two around would help the exposure or those of us still posting with creaky brains after midnight?
Oh my, you're right, there are a bunch of events! I think whenever those death of the hobby threads pop up, I'll start linking back to the Coming Evenets calendar...
Maybe some things do actually get better?
I distinctly get the impression that the book club group was not enthused about such a "recent" issue of MR as 2005 - although in part my intent was to encourage involvement from those who might have the hard copy but are not yet getting the All Acess Pass. The next issue, which I will post on Monday, will go wayyyy back. And sure send me suggestions for chosen issues although I randomly choose an issue -- I don't deliberately seek out one I know to be interesting.
Meanwhile comment on February 2005 is welcome through Monday morning when I will post the next week's issue.
I think that was it. Most of the stuff in the 2005 issue is equipment everyone is familiar with, it's still around, Most of the advertisers are, too. Even the magazine staff isn't totally different.
One thing, that references a previous BotW, compare construction articles. Way back we had 10,000 Spikes and Tuxedo Junction - both of which ran for over a year. Not it's 3-4 months with mostly just pages of pictures with captions. The simple oval with a siding or two early staff layouts were done in one or two issues. But then they got more interesting, like the Ma and Pa series, or the Portage Hill & Communipaw. Both of those had well-developed stories to go along with the modeling, which made things a lot more interesting, but it also meant that it took longer to get to the 'final' finished product - I don't know that today's short attention spans would tolerate a year's worth of articles to build a complete layout, and that's just sad. The naysayers would be two camps - the cynics would ay it's just to get people to subscribe or buy more issues, the rest would simply lose interest and not even comment on it after their attention wandered. Granted there is more emphasis on prototype modeling these days so there is less need for a 'story' to justify your railroad. Direction always changes - the freelance design may make a comeback in years to come. Years ago when i was planning a freelance layout, I had written up a whole corporate history to justify location and equipment I was planning to use - I actually did rosters from the steam era up until the supposed end of my railroad in the 50's, a victim of hurricanes and massive flooding that killed or nearly killed many a Northeast railroad. Which also justified why very few signs of this former railroad exist today in the area I had it running. How very convenient! As I read it some 25 years after Ioriginally wrote it, it certainly isn;t publication-worthy, it needs a lot of work - but then creative writing never was my thing. I'll probably never build it, or anything remotely like it, I'm too entrenched in the prototype Reading now. Since I'm not actually replicating any actual locations on the Reading, I could have one of the branches I am planning be formerly that railroad, purchased by the Reading, so maybe I can have the name live on a little bit.
For me its the content. If a issue is weak on articles or features, it does not matter if its 44 or 95, its just a so so issue and there is only so much to get excited about and so much to review.
Some issues are simply better than others.
For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I was never a fan of Terry Thompson as editor. However, I note in his editorial he is talking about battery power and how we run our trains. This topic is very pertinent today with all the hoopla about dead rail. As I noted in the interview with Jim Scorse in the Modeler's Life podcast, there is a need for a standard, just like with DCC we needed a standard for it to really take off. Will be interesting to see what the next 5 years bring in MRR control.
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Greg WilliamsCanterbury, NBCanadahttps://www.gregstrainyard.com/