Another MR garden railway.

Roger T. · 2003-09-12T16:07:40+00:00

I see the latest MR has another garden railway featured?What's that, two in the past few months?Yes, it's a nice garden railway, but don't Kalmbach already have a gardenrailway magazine? If so, what's a garden railway doing in MR?--CheersRoger T. of the Great Eastern Railway

Sep 12, 2003 144 Replies

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Bruce Favinger 22 years ago

Terry, What is so darn bad about the NMRA standards? They make it possible for everyone's stuff to more or less work together with out major modifications. I've used the NMRA standards for everything except sometimes car weight. Everything has run just fine so far. Your right about those Atlas turnouts though. My NMRA gauge says the ones I have didn't meet any standards. And when I made them gauge right they still gave me problems even after putting power to that mystery metal frog. At least my semi junk Walthers code 83's after about 20 minutes work operate like champs. Then I have my fathers scratch built turnouts most of which still work flawlessly after almost fifty years. Too bad they're brass. I remember how my dad and I would go through an hour long rail cleaning ritual when we wanted to run the trains or if guests were coming over who might want to see the railroad. My dad had some wheel sets he used as gauges to lay his track Everything operated fine but his track gauge was a tiny bit more narrow ( at least in the turnouts he built) than the NMRA standard. Bruce

Unfortunately MR continuesto push out of date second best NMRA standards and the to heavy incorrect NMRA weight RP. It also is corrupted by its need to support its major advertisers, resulting in info commercial style articles which results in some inferior products being widely used eg Atlas turnouts and track.

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Paul K - The CB&Q Guy 22 years ago

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' I plan on doing all of the above!

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Mike Tennent 22 years ago

In a word, no.

They are precision cut kits that fit together perfectly and require few traditional scratchbuilding skills. They've done the hard part for you. They require good (sometimes excellent) modeling skills, but not the traditional scratchbuilding skills. It's more like assembling a high end freight car kit.

And yes, I am a scratchbuilder. But also a kit builder.

So I ask you, why is it necessary for MR, or any magazine, to publish articles on scratchbuilding? You just said you and your legion of followers are now building kits.

You appear to be criticizing MR for not publishing scratchbuilding articles while at the same time making a case that they are not needed, since all those great scratchbuilders are now building kits.

Many of the articles they have been publishing cover the basic skills need to build one of the high end kits. You have to walk before you can run. One can therefor make the case that they are publishing articles that will help new modelers grow into the part of the market you are praising.

And likewise, FSM, FOS, Blair, Bar Mills, etc are "pandering" to their perceived audience - lazy ex-scratchbuilders.

These kits are to the scratchbuilder what RTR is to the "casual" model railroader. Why bother with the hassle if someone already makes it?

Mike Tennent "IronPenguin"

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Terry Flynn 22 years ago

His opinion on this subject is incorrect, a simple fact, and don't be fooled by his other stories, unless you like fiction.

IMHO Mark Newton the expert is sufficiently dense to need the point made 4 times, as he repeated his incorrect opinion strongly at least 4 times.

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Mark Newton 22 years ago

According to Terry Flynn, chronic liar. LOL!

Now there's something I never thought I'd see - Flynn using the phrase "in my humble opinion"!!! I don't think you'd recognise humility if it ran up and bit you on the arse, Flynn. You're an ego in search of an epicentre.

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