October Model Railroader

Down here in Australia MR is delivered in plastic bags. It is posted from all over the place - sometimes in Europe. Looks like the bulk mailing house uses wherever they can get the best deal at the time.

John Dennis

"John Dennis" <

Perhaps some postal authorities insist that envelopes/plastic bags be used for all mail.

Why the U.S.P.S permits magazine to be sent through the mails without an envelope/plastic bag just boggles my mind. I'd have thought that handling hundreds of thousands of loose magazine would be a real pain when it comes to sorting machines.

-- Cheers Roger T.

"Quietly disappeared?" - No.

When the change was made Model Railroader mentioned it right in the issue, and even gave the reasons for the change.

...which were....?

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Ah yes, I remember the good old days when the subscriber got preferential treatment such as these little extras, had the magazine protected in an envelope, etc., AND received their issue well before the rest of the world had access to it. It was nice to be appreciated . . .

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' That's what I started doing. Works great!

Paul - "The CB&Q Guy"

Less handling by the USPS without the bags. Kalmbach ships large bundles of the magazines to various distribution points around the country, and then they go directly to the local post offices from there.

My understanding is that Kalmbach's method avoids sorting machines altogether by getting the magazines delivered directly to the local post offices.

How many defective magazines have you been getting?

You saw him do it just this past month?

While I was critical of the garden railroad article, I did find the rest of the October issue fairly interesting.

In fact, I'm setting up a class at our local college under NMRA auspices (I'm the membership chair for the PNR) and thought the articles on track types, the manual turnout control article, Ian Rice's layout, etc. made it a good issue for beginners. I wrote to MR and they will furnish me with enough copies for the class attendees.

I will admit I'd like to see more scratch building articles (structures, rolling stock, etc.) but I'm probably in the minority. Most folks today have less time and more money than I do :-).

"Larry Blanchard"

I agree, I'd like to see more scratch building articles, but they don't make good "photo jounalism" which is why we don't see them much anymore.

Dotto.

-- Cheers Roger T.

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 17:40:20 UTC, "Roger T." wrote: 2000

What I would like to see is plans (or at least a nice set of photos) for real buildings, especially from the 40s and 50s. I don't mean the oddball ones either but the bread and butter industrial buildings of the era. RMC does ok in this regard but they never seem to get west of Pennsylvania. I know that these are not the least bit photogenic but there were a lot of them.

Actually I think MR is switching to more "eye candy" type articles because that is what sells magazines. Maybe it is time to split the magazine into two publications, one for the model builders and one for the model buyers. We might even get back some of the good columns, such as Paint Shop, Electronics Symposium and Computers in Model Railroading.

Walt

I've had periods when I was needed a issue replaced practically every other month because it either came destroyed or didn't show up at all.

Eric

Mark Mathu wrote:

How many defective magazines have you been getting?

They have buildings west of Pennsylvania. I thought there was only teepees. :-)

Jim Stewart

Hey Larry: Enjoy your retirement -- it's a reward.

Time is more precious than money, anyway (despite my father's incessant "time is money" ramblings when I was a kid).

Mark With the three young kids and little of anything right now!!!

"Jim Stewart" <

They also have sod huts and in Canada, as most Americans will tell you, they all live in igloos. :-)

It's a joke, nobody get hostile.

-- Cheers Roger T.

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 04:47:17 UTC, "Jim Stewart" wrote: 2000

Hey, we have hogans, wikieups and the occasional adobe.

WOW!! We are still in caves. Expensive ones at that.

Paul