June RMC - very good.

Folks:
I just bought the June 2007 RMC and I must say it's very good.
Scratchbuilder's Corner is shaping up into a wonderful series, and I love the chatty tone. It's fun to read and full of good info, like an E. L. Moore article. Better yet, there were two other construction articles, and both very useful! I love to see the sort of 'technique' article that Carl Traub used to write; just as much, I enjoyed the station-building article simply because it was a good, normal construction writeup, and had some unique ideas in it...bread and butter.
I don't want to put down the rest of the magazine, by any means...it was fine, but having three good model-building articles in one issue was fantastic! Put in an article by the Layout Doctor and a few semi-random scale drawings scattered around the pages, and this issue would have had all the content-heaviness of a mid-60s RMC, but with better pictures.
A nice bonus was Hal's foreword and the inside article on early scale models. Instead of just an offhanded word about how "we had nothing in those days", actual discussion of what just did exist! Astonishing...history and not legends; that's another thing this hobby needs. Why be scairt of the banshee when the truth is that your great-granduncle heard a screech owl?
Buy it, folks. If you've got friends in model railroading, buy one for each of 'em. It was that good.
Cordially yours: Gerard P. President, a box of track and an unassembled table

On Jun 18, 3:43 pm, snipped-for-privacy@gannon.edu wrote:
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Well, I purchased the June RMC last month, and the July one last week, and they are OK, but no real knock-outs - albiet the July article on the Chopper (and Duplicutter - yes, I have one) while seemingly very simple, brought on a "D'oh" moment, and I immediate used his tips to cut some Evergreen strips to a more accurate measure than what I had been doing before with a ruler and chisel blade knife - as I said, it was more a Why didn't I think of that moment than anything else, but hey, it worked! Alas, a few pages in the July issue are kinda wasted on NYC Subway Simulator scenes for MS Train Simulator, and even worse, Scratchbuilder's Corner meets Family Handyman in Workbench Improvements (put everything in labeled tubs, organizers, or for plastic & metal strips, mailing tubes) . Well, at least it's wasn't the nadir of articles, 'How to clip articles from magazines' of some issues back :P ).

Sir Ray wrote:
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Hmm. Rail Model Craftsman Table of Contents, June 07 Interesting articles
Perspective: Heritage Sawmill Modeling Philosophy 101 Adding Sound to F units Ford City Depot Scratch Builders Corner board by board Modeling a DL&W 90 foot thru girder turntable in HO
Model RailRoader Table of Contents, Jun 07 Interesting articles
A station on a Rock Shelf Dominao Backdrops and skirts Kitbash an N scale coal tipple Athearn Decoder installation
Maybe next year subscribe to RMC rather than renewing my MR subscription?
David Starr

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I have to agree with you here Ray, an article about a model subway would have been nice but I don't see what a simulator programm has got to do with Model Trains and surely not 5 pages worth.
and even worse,
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plastic & metal strips, mailing tubes) .
Again agreed, nothing said in this article that needed to be said.
I very much liked the rest though especially the kitbashing and scratchbuilding articles.
I haven't been modeling very long and these kind of articles sure make me want to experiment on kits insteaad of just building the normal kit as is.
Greetz Jan

Hmm, it's been enough months, I wonder when the submission from the guys who used to contribute to Mainline Modeler & Model Railroading will start showing up in RMC. I'll guess we'll know when articles on scale vehicle detailing, intermodal operations modeling, or modern era freight cars start appearing...

RMC blows. Poor pictures, lousy editing. RMJ is the best.

On Jun 24, 5:34 pm, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:
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Are you sure about that? - as I have generally found the opposite to be true - RailModel Journal seems to have more (on average) - murkier or unclear pictures; subpar layout photo-tours; captions that end abruptly or seem unrelated to the photo they are supposedly associated with; incorrect captions; captions overlaid on the photos, but with low contrast between the two (i.e. black text overlaid on a medium gray layout fascia); and, from time to time, incomplete or repeated lines or paragraphs in the articles (in a recent article on a coal breaker - I read a misplaced paragraph near the beginning of the article, and couldn't puzzle out why it was there...then later on midway, I read the same paragraph again, and since that was it's proper place it made sense). Now, not to insuniate that RMJ is put together by a bunch of crack-addled squirrels, as the above problems are actually uncommon, but still they do occur in far largers numbers than in RMC. Of course, I think it was the erstwhile Model Railroading which, besides having really murky B&W photos, would overlay a liberal amount of these images with a spiked circle enclosing the words 'Modeler's Tip' , just to add to the general unreadibility. Of course, MRG was indeed put together by crack-addled squirrels, so that explains that :P (OK, so I embellish a bit). Mainline Modeler, now they really put out a good (2nd tier) magazine - sorry to see them go.

Sir Ray spake thus:
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Just want to remind you that you were talking to a troll there (not me). Just FYI.

Just want to remind you that you were talking to a troll there (not me). Just FYI. This version of me is a troll and a fake sockpuppet for CurtMchere.
-- Any system of knowledge that is capable of listing films in order of use of the word "fuck" is incapable of writing a good summary and analysis of the Philippine-American War. And vice-versa. This is an inviolable rule.
- Matthew White, referring to Wikipedia on his WikiWatch site (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm )
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Why not try it some time? I hardly ever buy kits and assemble them as is. If nothing else, I paint them first, even if they were "cast in color."
Puckdropper

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If you would like to give kit bashing or "kit mingling" a try, I'd suggest that you look for a copy f the late Art Curren's book on the subject. Sorry, right now I can't remember the title but it has probably about a dozen of his articles that appeared in MODEL RAILROADER describing how to build totally different structures from pretty common plastic kits.
(I just checked; the book is called "Kitbashing Model Railroad Structures.")
Over the years, I've built almost all of them; they were a lot of fun to do and did make for some pretty interesting structures. I even ventured out on my own and created some others using his ideas. The only problem is that the kits, while they are still available today for the most part, are much more expensive than they used to be. One of the articles deals with converting the old Farm House or Aunt Millie's House to five distinctly different houses for a residential street. That is all well and goo, but that kit goes for around $15-$20 now... kind of makes your urban development project rather expensive. I'm really showing my age, but I can remember buying those kits for around $3-$4 each. : (
dlm

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Holey crud, I forgot all about that article - I remember reading it when it was originally published in Model Railroader (yea, I admit I'm not a spring chicken anymore). While the various combinations the author came up with were interesting (he started with a single story bungalow, and lead up to a radical kitbash - I remember he reconfigured the entrance and roof etc. - I did like one building model with an enclosed porch), what really struck me then was it was the first time I saw what a logical suburban block (of 5 homes, but still) modeled in Model Railroader - usually the layouts they showed had 2 home plopped between a grain mill/lumber yard and the downtown stores/passenger station, and that was the entire residental district.
Decades later this type of article was done for the Atlas model Kate's Colonial home, and I think I kept that article (and snagged 3 Kate's home models for 12 bucks a piece on sale - with inflation somewhat in the ballpark of the 1970s Aunt Millies/Farmhouse/W.E. Snatchum building price). As a note, the Aunt Millie moldings seemed really poor when I purchased a kit maybe 10 years back - especially the window frame moldings on the building walls, were unbalanced and offset to one side - was this true for all of these models, or only a bad kit I purchased (maybe why it was a clearence).

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I think it was called "Maple Street" or something like that. Yes, I remember the article about the Atlas house as well. You did very good to get them at $12 each; I'd like to find that kind of bargain from time to time. My only problem now is that I have collected quite a few residential homes and am pretty much good to go in that department. Thatn's not saying that IF I could find some of the old Aunt Millie's Houses, I wouldn't break down & buy some just for the fun of building some of them. I only built one; the most complicated one of the five, because I couldn't find any more kits.
I don't remember that the details were cast on the kits. I was thinking that they all had seperate window castings. In addition to the Aunt Millie's House & the undertaker, there was also a hardware store made from the same basic kit parts with a different set of details.
Sometimes, I wonder if the things that we used to accept as being pretty good pale today when compared to some of the really nicer kits on the market. Look at how we used to think that Athearn engines were pretty good... not by today's standards.
dlm

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I found the book on Amazon for quite a nice price $ 14,-, only an additional 12 for shipping ( I live in the Netherlands ). I model in N Scale would the book ( its on HO scale ) still be worth the $ 26,-.
Greetz Jan

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Jan,
That would depend... on whether the kits that he started with are available in N scale. Some of them probably are, but many aren't either. You could possibly look at it as just an idea starter and go from there. I just quickly glanced at Ebay; I saw a couple of the kits featured in the book but not many.
Hope this helps.
dlm

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Jan,
Contact me at my email address offlist please.
dlm

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This hobby encompasses so many things:
Those who like to build models; those who like to operate trains; those who like to create scenes from their youth or an era long bygone; those who like to design circuits which can interpret a train's position and act on it; those who want to power their engine using real steam power; those who want to connect modules with others into a super-layout; those who sit in an armchair and dream of the day they have the space, time, money to have a layout; those who write and share what they learn with others; those who spend hours debating the type of brakewheel a certain gondola had; those who want to nitpick others modeling work., those who wonder a 'what-if' scenario...
... a prototypical train simulator program is certainly welcome in our hobby, for those who enjoy that part of *modeling* a railroad. How can't you see the connection to model trains?
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Okay maybe a slight connection, but for me not a big enough connection to spend 5 pages on in RMC. Its like spending 5 pages on Need For Speed in a Car Collectors magazine.
Greetz Jan

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That is what the magazine can do for you.

snipped-for-privacy@gannon.edu wrote in
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I took your advice, so I'm hoping it's as good as you say. If not, may your engines run funny and gremlins take over your turnouts. ;-) Just kidding...
Oh, you can send "my" copy to a new guy here. We're all "friends" here right? ;-)
Puckdropper