I am not sure if I agree with Mark, however, I will not purchase a subscription to Model Railroader anymore, and I rarely purchase single isssues, as, in my own opinion, the overall quality of the magazine, in general, has gone down the tubes. My last subscription was a freebie (won it it a model RR show) and even free, most of the issues had very little of interest in them for me. I currently have two more certificates for free one year MR subscriptions, I will probably end up giving them away, or selling them on Ebay. I have always liked Railroad Model Craftsman much better, as well as Rail Model Journal and Model Railroading, (and I continue to purchase them at my "local" model RR shop) all are much less commercial, and give much more useable information on prototype and scale modeling, and also deal more with smaller, Fallen Flag and various regional modelling, then MR. MR, from what I have seen, glues itself to the big carriers, and the carriers surrounding Milwaukee. As one who enjoys Pre-Conrail Eastern roads, I personally can only take so much of BN, ATSF, UP and Wisconsin Central, month after month, and layout articles which seem to go out of their way, to highlight those roads, and the MR advertisers products. MR's coverage of the roads in areas that I am interested in, are sparse, at best. The other, smaller magazines do a much better job of this, and even when my own specific interests are not addressed, I still find many related articles of interest in the other mags.I don't expect to see the EL, CNJ, D&H or LV published in every mag, every month, however, I would prefer to see articles on Wabash, NKP, RF&P, ACL... etc.... then always reading about the UP, BN, ATSF, BNSF, NS and CSX. As for Garden Railroading, to drift back on topic, I enjoy seeing and watching them, maybe one day when I am rich and famous, and my HO scale version of the
1968 era corridor from the Delaware River, up through Allentown, Scranton, Stroudsburg and into Binghamton, is started and completed, I would even consider putting a Garden Railway in, just for kicks, but, I personally prefer to purchase magazines that are more selective in what they publish, those that are more in line with my own interests, geared more to scale modelling. If and when, I ever take interest in Garden Railways, I will be the first one to purchase magazines dealing with them.... at that time. It seems to me, that MR has no real specific direction, in what it publishes, or atleast, the directions that it appears to go in, are of little to no interest, to me, and apparantly, many other modelers. Jeff