Old Model RR mags - Worth saving intact?

[Anonymous]

Way to go, CARRfan; you sure touched a nerve with me. I hadn't thought about creating a digital archive but I sure have now. Years ago when I was studying to become a computer programmer one of my projects was a program designed to index magazines - I, of course, had my model railroading/prototype railroading magazines in mind. This has been on hold for twenty years - time to get off my caboose and get it done I guess. My old computation was that it would take about 2-3000 lines of code - about 50 hours. Piece of Cake!!!!

One thing I need to explore first is the possiblity that there might be a database/spreadsheet system that would allow an indexing function. I was a "hard language" programmer and haven't worked with those things in quite awhile.

About the copyright ramifications of creating a digital archive; I am not an authority on the issue but I am an aspiring (notice I didn't say "perspiring") novelist and I have crossed swords with this issue before. You bought it and therefore you have acquired an "interest" in the magazine. You can not profit from the intellectual property (read: sell it) nor can you cause the author/publisher to sustain loss (read: give it away, and [picky-picky-picky]. loan it - every used book store in this country is in violation of copyright law and, therefore, technically illegal. Libraries have an exemption to this rule because they are [usually] municipal agencies. Even then they are not supposed to have "used book" sales.) You can store the information in any manner that warms the cockles of your heart.

[emdgp92]

I still have all of my MRs...going back to the late 1970s. They're all in binders and are neatly stacked in those plastic crates from Target. I could have cut them up, but with my luck, as soon as I did that, I'd need one of the articles I'd tossed [:D] Even though I have most of the paper indexes from MR, I'd rather keep my copies, and use the index on here. It's much easier that way.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by aardvark

I've bought a lot of old mags, mostly '70s on, but with a few back to '47 mixed in. Generally I just cut out the articles I like and throw out the husks, but I'm hesitant when doing it to a mag 60 years old. Given that these things go begging on Ebay at 50 cents per, is there really any value in keeping these old ones whole?

Kurt Laughlin

If you mean for the articles then yeah I'd say save them. As for financing your retirement with a stack of MRs my advice to you is learn to love ramen soup.

[ErnieC]

Interesting thread. I have issues from the 40's and it looks like I'm the only one who likes to curl up with an old issue on a quiet evening and enjoy the mag for the memories and insights it offers. Something else no one has mentioned, the old issues contain irreplacable articles on the prototype, first hand descriptions of things no longer available, otherwise you are stuck with the desert landscape of the contemporary scene.

[BR60103]

I have modified my magazine collecting a bit: I no longer keep the subscription cards that fall out of the magazine.
I really hate it when I buy an old Model railroader and find that the interesting article stops in the middle because someone cut out a story on the next page. Worse when I find that the feature article is missing.
My RR magazine library is 6 shelves, about 16 feet long.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dirtyd79
If you mean for the articles then yeah I'd say save them. As for financing your retirement with a stack of MRs my advice to you is learn to love ramen soup.

What I was really meaning was if these things are so valuable (witness the responses on this thread) how come they are so cheap and plentiful?

KL

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ereimer

it depends , is your hobby really collecting magazines or are they a reference source ?

Another good point.

KL

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ErnieC

Interesting thread. I have issues from the 40's and it looks like I'm the only one who likes to curl up with an old issue on a quiet evening and enjoy the mag for the memories and insights it offers

I do that from time to time myself, I just doubt that I need 500 old issues to curl up with. . . I've also found that I have more affinity in this regard to magazines I bought new - reliving old memories, I guess. Ones I bought en masse later just don't have a personal connection.

QUOTE: [Something else no one has mentioned, the old issues contain irreplacable articles on the prototype, first hand descriptions of things no longer available, otherwise you are stuck with the desert landscape of the contemporary scene.

Well maybe no one mentioned it directly, but I'd agree that's true. It's also true that I would probably save those articles - or at least a goodly number of them.

KL

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by emdgp92
[ Even though I have most of the paper indexes from MR, I'd rather keep my copies, and use the index on here. It's much easier that way.

That brings up an interesting point . Look at what the the mag index here lists for, say, the March 1946 MR:

Making steam loco pilots

Union Line box car

NYSME trackplan

How to use signals

Building a Consolidation Locomotive, part 6: tender

Convert a Hudson into a suburban

Rectory railroad

A.A.R. 1932 standard steel sheathed box car

Eight articles. Isn't that sort of tacit admission that there aren't more than eight things in that issue worth keeping track of?

Let's look at these eight. Just from the titles, I'd certainly keep:

Union Line box car

A.A.R. 1932 standard steel sheathed box car

I might keep:

How to use signals

but I suspect there ain't much in there that hasn't been covered several times more recently in articles or books.

These - by title alone - have no appeal to me:

Making steam loco pilots

For one, I have no interest in steam, plus, is this necessary on today's - or the last 10 year's - locos?

NYSME trackplan

A club plan. No interest.

Building a Consolidation Locomotive, part 6: tender

Again, steam and probably unnecessary given what's out there. Perhaps some proto photos or info worth keeping.

Convert a Hudson into a suburban

See previous two.

Rectory railroad

??? but likely a feature on some model building priest, running a train with his vestments and engineer's cap on. . .

Maybe if this had been the first MR I'd ever bought (I still my first time-tattered Scale Modeler) I'd hang on to it, but seeing it for the first time in 2006, I can see I'd be shedding about 90% of the pages.

KL

[CNJ831]

QUOTE: Originally posted by aardvark
For one, I have no interest in steam, plus, is this necessary on today's - or the last 10 year's - locos?

NYSME trackplan

A club plan. No interest.

Building a Consolidation Locomotive, part 6: tender

Again, steam and probably unnecessary given what's out there. Perhaps some proto photos or info worth keeping.

Convert a Hudson into a suburban

See previous two.

KL - Do you even know what a "suburban" is?

CNJ831

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CNJ831
[Convert a Hudson into a suburban

KL - Do you even know what a "suburban" is?

CNJ831

Heh, heh. I see what you mean. In the context of a model train magazine my first thought was that it referred to converting a Hudson (4-6-4) into the PRR/LIRR G5s (4-6-0) commuter train loco. Now if the listing had said "Convert a Hudson into a Suburban", I might have thought cars . . .

KL

[Morpar]

After reading this thread, it puts me to thinking about all of the paper I have saved around here. I think there is a lot of merit to taking the time to scan all of the relevant pages of a magazine, then enter the information into a searchable database, perhaps using Visual Basic to easily access the information. Note that I said relevant information. I feel there is no need to keep the advertisements from a hobby supplier that went out of business 12 years ago out of a 20 year old magazine. Interesting, maybe. Useful, no! In this way, if one ever would want an article, they would have access to it without the paper hassle.

The exception would be any plans or drawings that either have fine lines or are foldouts. 20 years ago I started to organize these kinds of thing by having large envelopes labeled for an item with the pictures, plans, or whatever in them. For example, one envelope has "EMD SD45" written on the front. Inside are the various photos I have of SD45s, old calendar pages with SD45s in the picture, the operating manual that I was given during a trip to the Frankfort yards, and a drawing that came from some magazine. This is how I would store the foldouts or drawings that don't seem to scan or print well, yet may need to be kept. Just getting all of this done would cut down drastically on my storage needs. I would not want to just scan the stuff I have interest in now, because I know how my interest can change and will rather quickly! If you have all of the information, why would you want to keep the entire paper husk?

[davekelly]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CNJ831

Two points those who advocate cutting out articles and throwing the rest of the magazine away should consider:

1. Especially in the case of newbies and semi-newbies (anyone with less than 8-10 years in the hobby), you are clipping what interests you right now. You have no idea what info may come in handy next year or five years from now. Generally, it turns out to have been in the portion of the magazine you discarded.

Excellent point. It's amazing how one's interests change and evolve over time. I often find myself reading again and again articles that didn't interest me a bit when I first received an issue. It is also sometimes fun to get an old volume out and page through it just to see what has changed and what has remained the same.

Of course the magazine index offered here, makes finding stuff a snap!

[MJ4562]

QUOTE: Originally posted by aardvark
What I was really meaning was if these things are so valuable (witness the responses on this thread) how come they are so cheap and plentiful?

KL

Maybe helpful or useful would be better words than valuable. It's like that 1/4 inch screw you find you're missing while holding up the ceiling fan you're installing. You wish you had it but it doesn't have much market value.

Whether to save or discard is a personal choice. I trash or give away all my magazines except for MR because I enjoy the layout visits.

It sounds like you're mainly interested in the "how to" type articles, which have little or no value use after 10 years. OTOH, cutting up a MR is a terrible thing. I would suggest scanning in everything you think you might be interested in and then giving them to your library or sell them (for 10 cents each) to a used bookstore. That way other people can enjoy them and you will be helping ensure that they are still be plentiful if you change your mind.

[davekelly]

While scanning articles into a data base is a great way to cut space, if I were to do that I couldn't read them in the reading room. [:D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by APG45

QUOTE: Originally posted by aardvark
What I was really meaning was if these things are so valuable (witness the responses on this thread) how come they are so cheap and plentiful?

KL

Maybe helpful or useful would be better words than valuable. It's like that 1/4 inch screw you find you're missing while holding up the ceiling fan you're installing. You wish you had it but it doesn't have much market value.

Well to continue with your analogy, people are talking as if a set of mags are of incalculable value in modeling, sort of a box that held " every possible screw you could ever need!" That would be valuable, wouldn't you think?

Really though, for as many people who think a complete, intact set is a fabulous thing to have, there doesn't seem to be many people putting down the ca***o create their own complete, intact set, otherwise they wouldn't be sold at swap meets for a quarter a piece or go begging on ebay for 6 bucks a year - and with free shipping, no less.

QUOTE: It sounds like you're mainly interested in the "how to" type articles, which have little or no value use after 10 years.

I wouldn't say that first part is true, but I agree that much of the how-to stuff ages poorly (as I said before, because of advances in the state of the art in materials, kits, electronics, and modeler expectations). I find their main value in the prototype info that supports it.

QUOTE: OTOH, cutting up a MR is a terrible thing. I would suggest scanning in everything you think you might be interested in and then giving them to your library or sell them (for 10 cents each) to a used bookstore. That way other people can enjoy them and you will be helping ensure that they are still be plentiful if you change your mind.

Scanning? Good gosh you're crazy - I'm talking 500 mags here. Heck, if I could get somebody to commit to paying the shipping for this heap I'd consider letting them have them for nothing after I'd copied what I wanted.

[This may be a copyright violation. If so, please consider this a purely hypothetical discussion. . .]

KL

[MJ4562]

QUOTE: Originally posted by aardvark
Well to continue with your analogy, people are talking as if a set of mags are of incalculable value in modeling, sort of a box that held " every possible screw you could ever need!" That would be valuable, wouldn't you think?

Really though, for as many people who think a complete, intact set is a fabulous thing to have, there doesn't seem to be many people putting down the ca***o create their own complete, intact set, otherwise they wouldn't be sold at swap meets for a quarter a piece or go begging on ebay for 6 bucks a year - and with free shipping, no less.

It's like organizing any kind of group activity, everyone thinks it's a great idea but when the time comes to commit they all back out.

Good luck. It's one of the most painful things I've done.

[Anonymous]

Well, I have different magazine years some of which goes back to before 60's.

I advocate scanning good quality copies page by page organized by year and month into a server where people can download and read on the computer like a PDF file.

I suppose there is a cost, man hours and equiptment that will be needed for that work.

[Anonymous]

Again, just a data point for those considering copying or scanning, and recycling the rest...

I tackled this project (including my drum magazines - which I was even more attached to) about 2 years ago. Keep in mind, these are drum magazines I read as a kid with my "hero's" in there, etc.

I have not regretted it once. I saved everything I "couldn't live without". That is the criteria for keeping it - not, "I might want this someday".

Referring to a post above, I think it would be nuts to keep every 1/4" screw you have just in case you need it one day. I'd be living in a junkyard in a matter of months.

Free yourselves! Do away with the mags now!

(I initially saw myself keeping them my whole life, but as the number of boxes used to move them turned from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, I knew I essentially "had a problem".

[steamage]

I have a small collection of Model Trains magazines that treasure. Todays magazines get cut up and sort into file folders.

[potlatcher]

QUOTE: It sounds like you're mainly interested in the "how to" type articles, which have little or no value use after 10 years.

JMHO, but I think the how-to articles are more likely to be useful than anything else in the magazine, no matter how old they may be. Not every locomotive, freightcar, caboose, structure, etc . . . is available "off the shelf" these days, and sometimes the "old" way of doing things is the best way to get what you want. Or, at least seeing how things used to be done can inspire you to find new techniques to accompli***he same task.

Take for example the Kizilgoetian Supply/Perkins Produce structure article in the latest MR. I found it very enlightening to read the Smallshaw article from 1974 (that MR posted on their website) then to read the current article and see where the author followed Smallshaw's instructions and where he broke away with newer techniques. By comparing and contrasting the two sets of techniques, I feel more confident that I can take on a similar project and have the skills to get it done.

For me, the layout articles are usually the first to go into the recycling bin (with some notable exceptions), and the how-to articles are the first to save.

Tom

[cuyama]

As part of the junkectomy needed for the next phase of layout constuction in my garage, I've had to face the fact that I was drowning in train mags. In my case, I decided to keep the Model Railroader magazines (including MRP and GMR) and the Layout Design Journal/News intact, at least for now. These have been very handy and are a good general reference, I find.

Nearly all of the other mags I am tearing/cutting apart and saving key articles in 3-ring binders. These are filed simply by date: all the 2003 articles together, filed by magazine/month, etc.

Once I get on a roll, I'm spending 2-4 minutes to completely process each mag ... that includes paging through, cutting, punching, placing in binders, etc. I have a pad and pen at hand and I'm making very quick notes ... just a line ... on each article I save. Later I may organize those notes further, but mainly I'll just use the Index of Magazines on this site. Since I have organized my clippings by year/mag/month, it should be easy to find anything I have saved.

My sense is that it's taking a lot less time this way than to scan articles and/or fiddle with a database -- at least for me.

In my case, I know my interests pretty well. My own layout concepts have always been focused on California. Some references to the rest of the country I might need when doing designs for others can always be found in the stored MRs, at least. I'm interested in rail/marine, terminal operations and switching, etc. I'm fortunate that i don't need to save a ton of articles "just in case" my interests change.

But still, it's always very hard for me to throw away anything that might be useful in the future. Two parents raised in the depression will do that to you. But I'm trying to focus on:
1) articles that really speak to my specific interests (these are few)
2) information that cannot readily be found elsewhere (some of Culotta's "Essential Freight Cars" articles in Railmodel Craftsman are examples for me)
3) Memorable/inspirational layout coverage
4) Tips and techniques that I had forgotten since I read the magazine the first time -- if I forgot it once, I'll forget again

Most of all, I had to let go of the fear of not having something that I might need in the future (however remote the possiblity). Back issues or copies can always be purchased if something like that happens.

I've reduced several linear feet of stored magazines to four mid-sized binders so far. Very satisfying.

Regards,

Byron

[Anonymous]

Cutting them up is anathema to me.
If you don't want to keep the whole thing and/or want to realise the value why not scan the material you want into your PC and sell the whole mags to someone who would like to keep them?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by David Foster

Cutting them up is anathema to me.
If you don't want to keep the whole thing and/or want to realise the value why not scan the material you want into your PC and sell the whole mags to someone who would like to keep them?

Because slicing it out with a razor blade and placing a single piece of paper on the scanner is about a thousand times easier, and gets you a way better scan than trying to smash a bound magazine onto the scanner with the inner edge of the page curling up, etc.

Guys, cutting up a model train magazine isn't a sin you know. [}:)]

[:)]

[steveiow]

I save all of mine intact-MR/MRC/MRG & MM-I pay good money for them here in the UK and have storage space-publishers binders help.
Steve

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CNJ831

QUOTE:
I strongly suspect...that referencing back issues will be less far reaching as time goes on, due to the "shelf-life" of info described above. When was the last time somebody referenced a 1961 article in MR, other than to say something like "The Gorre and Daphetid was first featured in the June '52 MR. . ."?

Actually, I see it fairly often in the magazine. The July 2006 MR just referred readers to an article appearing in the December 1974 issue, without which the current piece (Perkins) becomes a pointless item of look-what-I-did...but not a how-to-do-it article. There are plenty of times when the author, or perhaps the editors, refer the reader back to some past article, where the subject at hand was typically covered in far more detail than it is in the current issue.

I had lent out my July issue yesterday but after reading the article in question this morning I have to disagree completely. The 2006 article really has nothing to do with the plan from 1974, other than it was the inspiration for the current author. The new article is about using polymer clay and foam core to make buildings - hardly a "pointless look-at-what-I-did" - and the particular building under construction is irrelevant. To top it all off, MR put the original article on-line! They do reference a 1969 article on cutting cedar shingles from cigar wrappers, but the technique does not appear so arcane that the illustrations they give wouldn't be adequate.

All-in-all, it would not kill me to realize that I had tossed these two issues if I was trying this technique.

KL

[Tilden]

I keep them intact and in binders labeled by year. They are great for reference...and to "borrow" great ideas from. :-)

[Anonymous]

i have a small box full of the really good issues from the last fifty years. the articles of interest have been copied and filed for quick reference. this i will keep forever.

of the half dozen other boxes full, well, they may change ownership if space becomes an issue. in the meantime, i tend to alternate eight inch stacks of them by the toilet, and since i have "short term memory loss", they seem new to me.

before i would cut them up, or throw them out, i would likely donate them to my local hobby shop so they can be recycled for about a dime each. new guys to the hobby find affordable old magazines useful.

[gallagher]

To each his/her own. My wife gets on my case about hoarding magazines and she is right! [^] I started cutting out what was valuable to me and placing them in file folders by topic. I can always reorganize the folders but found that it is so much easier to find a drawing of an engine, etc. rather than trying to recall where I saw it, the particular issue, etc. I have spent lots of time in the past searching for that particular issue of the journal - time wasted or off task.

If you don't sell or give away your cut up journals, don't throw them away. Recycle them, please. [8D]

I do keep some special issues of MRR, the anniversary issues etc. I also keep ones with special topics. I now have lots more space and all of that space occupied with advertizing is available for other uses.

I am in this hobby to build models, build a layout, operate my layout, participate in a model railroad club, be creative, enjoy friends in the hobby, and share with others. That is what we are doing here and it is great.

BTW, you can always order back copies of an article from MRR or, if an NMRA member, you can get back issues from their library. Also, that is another place where you can donate your back issues.

As to copyright issues, a publisher will not go after you for making a copy of an article for personal use. But, you can't sell them, distribute copies - even for free, nor post them on your web site for others to download.

Enjoyed the conversation and the different ways one enjoys the hobby. [:D]

John

[Anonymous]

As Kalmbach/Model Railroader has always requested/insisted on having all rights to the material (articles/photos) submitted, why won't they start re-publishing ModelRailroader volumes as reprints on CD/DVD? I'd be glad to get rid of all my old magazines (1977--200X) if I could buy them as DVDs.

I fail to see any legal problems, as Model Railroader has for some time being reprinting old selected articles as booklets.

German magazines have done this for quite some time: the oldest issues are scanned into PDF and the latest are (low resolution) PDF versions of the original printers PDF versions (published at 200dpi which is good enough for reading and viewing on screen and even printing at home). Only some advertisements have been blanced out...

pekka