Another MR garden railway.

Because a garden railway is a model railway. Simple English.

The Oxford Dictionary of English definition of the words Model ' representation of a designed or actual object'. and Railway or Railroad ' road laid with rails for the transit of trains'.

A Toy is 'a play thing' and to Play is 'to amuse oneself'. Thus irrespective of prototype, scale, used inside or outside, live steam, push along or static, coarse scale wheels or exact scale wheels, made of metal, plastic, wood or Lego, scenery or no scenery all are model railways, and when used and the user has fun, they all come under the definition of a toy.

Mark Newtons narrow definition of a model railway of course is incorrect. A garden railway is a model railway.

Consider the Oxford Dictionary of English definition of the words Model ' representation of a designed or actual object'. and Railway or Railroad ' road laid with rails for the transit of trains'.

A Toy is 'a play thing' and to Play is 'to amuse oneself'. Thus irrespective of prototype, scale, used inside or outside, live steam, push along or static, coarse scale wheels or exact scale wheels, made of metal, plastic, wood or Lego, scenery or no scenery all are model railways, and when used and the user has fun, they all come under the definition of a toy.

Mark Newton the expert is simply wrong. The garden railway is a model railroad, a simple fact. Excluding garden railways will not improve the content od MR. Quality information will.

All the above are model railroads. There is only a problem when we apply the narrow incorrect Mark Newton definition.

Of course Leon does not consider himself a model railroader, because he has a model railway set in his garden. What Mark Newton consider as usual is incorrect. Your un named mates probably have a different view, after all we only have your word on what they think.

Mark Newton's definition fails again, as he cannot argue the fine detailed garden model railways that exist are not model railways. And again Mark Newton the expert gets it wrong. The fantasy layout is a model railway. A simple matter of using the correct meanings of the words.

And you provide allot of 'it'.

When Mark tells us his opinion he says its his opinion, differing opinions are interesting to the rest of us.

Your problem, Terry, is that you have no concept of the meaning of IMHO. You invariably insist that your opinion, right or wrong, is the only answer. What is written in the OED is just someone's opinion. Less dogmatism and more opinions and people may actually listen to you. And few of us are so dense that you need to make a point 4 times. IMHO Keith

Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

The only difference is that railway (R-A-I-L-W-A-Y) is spelled differently than train (T-R-A-I-N), Otherwise there is no difference whatever. Terry Flynn is right about the toy thing. Anything smaller than 1:1 scale is a toy. Sometimes even 1:1 scale is a toy. I play with toys. So what?

Bobby Boucher snipped-for-privacy@mudbug.org

Of course there's a difference - when I spend a few hundred hours building a model locomotive, I'm building a locomotive, not a model railway. It may in the future become a component of a model railway but it is most definitely not, in isolation, a model railway. Many people model specific parts of railways without ever modelling the railway.

In the reverse direction, judging by the number of trains that operate on my local railway, a model of the railway without trains would be the most realistic situation. :-(

I have no problem with the term "toy" - except that I tend to use "toy" for the likes of "Thomas" and Tyco, model for Kato etc. That's my destinction.

Regards, Greg.P.

=>I read it but it's content is becoming less useful,

To Terry and others who complain about the dearth of useful material in MR:

The longer you are in the hobby, the less "useful stuff" will be published. It's not MR's fault it's yours. You end up knowing more than MR can teach you. MR has to reach the novice as well as the experienced modeller - and that means there will be a lot of what from the old hands' p.o.v. is fluff.

Live with it.

Or else found your own rag for experts only.

Great Idea Wolf There is no more knowledgable an expert than Mr. Flynn anywhere else in this hobby. He is the perfect person to found a new "Model Railways For Experts Only" magazine. I cannot imagine a greater storehouse of expert modeling wealth than that which Terry Flynn has in his head.

-- Ed Davis snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com

Mark, A Dobber? Sounds good to me. It also sounds like a some kind narrow gauge contraption that might have run the tracks in some forgotton corner of the planet. I might just have to bash one together for the On30 mini layout to keep the Porters company. Anyway watch out for the RMR Dobber. Bruce

Blatantly untrue. Anyone familiar with issues of MR from the 1950's, 60's or even the 70's knows that the magazine had far better and more useful content than it does today. After nearly a quarter century in the hobby I still constantly refer to my pre-1980's issues (I have a collection back to 1940) for ideas and projects but I can't recall the last thing I did/built/learned reading an issue dating from the last ten years. The only reason MR can't hold the reader's interest after say ten years nowadays is because it has little useful content beyond the beginner's/entry level - unless you are into DCC, which I am not. Too much fluff and very little meat is the problem, not experience level.

CNJ999

Oh NO! Not this again!!! You on some eternal crusade or what. Let's see how many different ways can I kill this.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

Unfortunately MR continues

I must be an aberration. I have a 30x32 railroad, with a 20x2 double deck extension on the edge of my crawlspace with a helix and 8 track staging yard further back in the crawl. The whole layout is built with Walthers turnouts, and a combination of Micro-Engineering track on the original part of the layout, and Atlas track on the extension. My cars are mostly weighted to the NMRA standard, with steel wheels and RP25 flanges (mostly Kadee, Intermountain, and Proto2000 wheelsets).

The trains run around without derailing. The turnouts work. I think I'll stick with outdated standards. Jerry Zeman

=>> Terry Flynn wrote: =>> I read it but it's content is becoming less useful, =>>

=>>To Terry and others who complain about the dearth of useful material in MR: =>>

=>>The longer you are in the hobby, the less "useful stuff" will be published. =>>It's not MR's fault it's yours. You end up knowing more than MR can teach =>>you. MR has to reach the novice as well as the experienced modeller - and =>>that means there will be a lot of what from the old hands' p.o.v. is fluff. =>>

=>>Live with it. =>>

=>>Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River, Ontario, Canada =>

=>Blatantly untrue. Anyone familiar with issues of MR from the 1950's, 60's or =>even the 70's knows that the magazine had far better and more useful content =>than it does today. After nearly a quarter century in the hobby I still =>constantly refer to my pre-1980's issues (I have a collection back to 1940) for =>ideas and projects but I can't recall the last thing I did/built/learned =>reading an issue dating from the last ten years.

You've just proved my point with regard to useful information -- your age gives you away. (BTW, I've been in the hobby over 50 years, close to 60 if you count the time spent with a "layout" in my Grandpa's garden, that consisted of my uncles' wind-upHornby trains running on track laid directly on the grass.)

You've also proved another point I've made several times: the scratchbuilder is in a minority, and a shrinking minority at that. Except when it comes to whinging about the hobby's decline. Then for some reason they appear in droves, complaining that no one is writing the kinds of article they want to see.

My friend, there are two reasons there are fewer scratchbuilding articles. First is that there are fewer scratchbuilders. Second is that far too many of them want someone else to write the articles.

MR knows its market - the middle of the road model railroader. That's where the market for RTR cars and locos is, and it's the reason old-line companies like Walthers are bringing out ready built structures, and Athearn is producing RTR cars. If Athearn was making loadsadough on their blue-box kits, they wouldn't bother with the RTR line. They have seen the future, and they want to be part of it. Walthers dropped its line of craft kits sveral years ago - they couldn't sell them, is all. The days of craft kits like theirs or Labelle's or Northeastern's are pretty well over - it's a niche market now, where 30-40 years ago it was part of the mainstream. The old hands that complain that times have changed are living in the past.

Cruel comment? Maybe. But that's life.

IMO we oldsters have two choices: wallow in nostalgia for the Good Ole Days (that never were), and decline into grumpy old men. Or accept the much improved product available today, and enjoy the hobby.

Jerry, in this context, you're not the aberration!

All the best,

Mark.

In fact, I've demonstrated just the opposite (re the first paragraph). Current MR projects offer me (and many others) no challenge, as I find most far to simplistic. On the other hand, material from MR's dating from the 50's-70's continues to command my attention and does challenge me - it is the magazine that has changed, no just the experience of the reader.

Regarding your implication of the demise of scratchbuilders, as a group we are alive and well and far more numerous than you think. It is simply a matter of us having altering our approach. Rather than working entirely from a pile of Northeastern Scale Lumber, we now are purchasing the complex and challenging kits offered by FSM, FOS, Blair, Bar Mills, and others. Most of these are virtually scratchbuilding projects, except you don't have to search your stockpile of stripwood for the necessary pieces - they're all in the kit. I use to build absolutely from scratch but now work almost exclusively with these scratch-kits. And to demonstrate that scratchbuilder are far from a dying breed, just look at the proliferation of kit companies over the past half dozen years. Every time you look up there's another new one! As these companies seem healthy and profitable, a lot of kits are obviously being sold.

As to MR knowing its market, I doubt it. This magazine, like so many others, has dumbed itself down to pander to the lowest common denominator. It is today far more about pretty pictures than about the nuts and bolts of actual model railroading. The staff has virtually turned over completely in the past couple of years and while the current full time crew may be better acredited as journalists, they are far less experienced as hobbyists.

I don't want to get into a complex discussion of RTR but I will say that I think it will probably hurt the hobby in the long run by pricing out a great many hobbyists.

CNJ999

For an explanation of what brings true and lasting pleasure to the hobbyist and what model railroading is read the story in the October 1955 "At the Throttle". It was not price but the absence of the priceless that hurts. I think MR itself got it right all those years ago. Bruce

As trash...............