Re: What a magazine should be.

Folks, I think this thread illustrates the problem with MR. They're a general model railroading mag. They have to try to relate to Doug and all 13 of you who'd responded to Doug when I wrote this. But, of those of you who responded who listed a preference, there wasn't a whole lot of consistency (except for dissing MR). One wants scratchbuilding. Another wants operations. One doesn't want "eye candy" but another wants whole room layout shots.

Right now I subscribe to MR, RMC, MRG, MM, and RMJ. If money gets tight, the last one to go will be MR. They have consistently high editorial standards (I have only found one error in MR in years). I am interested in at least something in every issue. And I appreciate that they are trying to appeal to as many of a very diverse audience as they can.

Larry

tight, the last one to go will be MR.< Interesting choice. I subscribed to these exact magazines and the one I dropped a couple of years ago was MR. The reason was for the most part it just didn't contain material I was interested in anymore.

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 23:24:45 UTC, Larry Z. Daily wrote: 2000

I think you have identified the situation correctly. They are trying to appeal to as large an audience as possible. It is impossible to please everyone. Part of the problem is that many of the complainers (including me) have been around long enough that we have seen a lot of this before so it is boring and uninteresting. It is not totally without merit but my personal take is that I don't get enough out of it to justify the cost. I have been taking RMC for the last couple of years and find at least two articles per issue that I find of real value.

I agree that their editorial standards are very high although the current/voltage analogies mentioned a while back were a major faux pas.

One of the good things about this thread is that we have agreed to disagree in a civil manner and people have been willing to be reasonably specific.

I still enjoy MR just not as much as I have in the past. I do think they have yielded some of the material many of us like to the other magazines. I don't think this is MR's fault. There are a more magazines now than there once were and they tend to be more specialized. The good articles we want are just spread over more magazines. My main gripe with MR is that it seems more and more often I see an article that really sounds good and its a short blurb or a box thing with a list and not much else. That disappoints me. An example is of what I mean is a while back MR had an article on the Crystal River RR. Very interesting. I'll never model this railroad but I thought it was neat. The problem was that the other half of the article was in Trains featured as a Blue Print Railroad. By contrast go back to the Sept 1978 issue of MR. It featured the Arcade & Attica. Another railroad I'll never model but it was neat. It had 10 pages of smaller print that gave you the complete history, rosters, operations, track diagrams, a sample layout, locomotive info, line drawings, pictures and info on industries, even info on the railroads bridges. I'd like to see more of that kind of coverage regardless of what an article may be about They still do it often enough so I know they can. I was wondering where Terry Thompson would take the magazine but it seems to me that not much has changed other than that "At the Throttle" talks at me but not too me anymore. Bruce

"Doug" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

I know what you're saying Bruce, and I agree. I call it the "Dumbing Down" of MR in recent years.

And while we're on this thread, there is a new list on Yahoo! which is doing the exact same topic. It's called baggagecar. Go to yahoogroups.com and do a search to find it. The description on the list's home page is as follows:

.............................................. Description Category: Trains and Railroads A group for the discussion of model railroad magazines, books and videos. Discuss your favorite magazine or book, tell us what you like and don't like, and why.

Inspired by (but not affiliated with) the Obscar group, this group is intended to provide the same kind of discussion and commentary for model railroad subjects that Obscar does for railroad publications. ..............................................

Paul - "The CB&Q Guy"

Yeah -- we sure can't have any cheap bastards in this hobby, that's for sure.

"Mark Mathu"

Oh. Guess I'd better quit then.

-- Cheers Roger T.

I do buy MR regularly and agree with the conclusion we seem to have reached here I would point out their overreliance on the "preety"shot. I appreciate demonstrating a modelers skill by using a super close shot of a scene or model, but there needs to be more shots from 5' back. I want to see how a scene integrates with the surroundings as the benchwork goes around the corner or whatever. Most articles I see now I have no sense of the overall layout (except for the occasional whole room shot).

my US$.02

Dave

Well, I'll have to get out then. That was one reason I scratchbuild. Dang, just when it was getting fun.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Yes.

BTW, I don't know if you noticed, but you were responding to two different people.

-- Bill Kaiser snipped-for-privacy@mtholyoke.edu

There are three ways to do a job: good, cheap, and quick. You can have any two. A good, cheap job won't be quick. A good, quick job won't be cheap. A cheap, quick job won't be good.

=>

=>Doug wrote: =>> =>> I've read a lot about MR lately and agree with the majority.

I don't think so. The majority buy MR.

Wolf Kirchmeir ................................. If you didn't want to go to Chicago, why did you get on this train? (Garrison Keillor)