Cleaning the Garage – the Final Chapter

Having gone through 55 years of Model Railroader magazines, I now feel as though I’ve come full circle. Having skimmed to my last issue (July 2012), the magazine has returned to sub 100 pages (where it started) from its glory days of 200+ pages. The new century brought a reduction in N scale material. It seems like the return to full HO emphasis started when they kicked Hedinger onto special hobby industry projects and retired Jim Kelley. Russ Larson returned on a temporary basis and they moved a Classic Toy Trains editor in. They were followed by a group of editors that I never really emotionally clicked with (other than Dave Propp). A lot of material from their new favorite overseas author didn’t do much for me either.

As to the demise of N scale material, which came first the chicken or the egg? Did the arrival of multiple N Scale magazines drain their material (and audience) or did their lack of published N scale material lead to the creation of the N Scale magazines?

They did do an interesting series on having different modelers list their 10 favorite or most used railroad web sites. Here’s mine in no particular order:

Railwire http://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php

Model Train Stuff http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/N-Scale-s/3.htm (but if it gets any slower, it’s getting dropped from the lsit)

Brooklyn Locomotive Works http://www.brooklynlocomotiveworks.com/

PRSL Historical Society http://www.prslhs.com/

SJRail.com http://www.sjrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Model Railcast Show http://themodelrailcastshow.com/

N Scale Locomotive Encyclopedia http://www.spookshow.net/locos.html

Model Railroad Hobbiest Magazine http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

Reading Modeler http://www.readingmodeler.com/

I was actually beginning to miss my Model Railroader subscription until my reading took me into the 21st century. Then I understood why I let my subscription lapse. I read it for the inspiration and the monthlies no longer gave me enough inspiring material. (I still do look forward to the yearly “Great Model Railroads” specials.)

My results: After going through 700+ Model Railroader (& N Scale)  magazines, I have kept 65 issues (+20 Trains magazines), ripped out 343 reference articles, and selected 52 additional issues that I will now try to get the local libraries to put in their 8-15 year old youth sections. I got excited about the hobby after running across a Model Railroader magazine, maybe a few carefully chosen (inspirational) issues will do the same for some other kids.

I have also managed to contribute to the physical enhancement of the local sanitation engineers by enabling them to cart off 11 cases of magazines.

More MR Humor (collected 102 of them also):

1.1  "Dad, how old must I be before I can play with my train?"
1.2  "To my brother I leave my railroad cap, to my wife I leave the car, and to my layout I leave the house."
2.1  "I told you that model airplane remote control unit would never work in an F7."
2.2  "The house is filled with his railroad, but I still have my garden."
3.2  -

1.1  -
1.2  "I wonder how often John Allen had to replace his mirrors?"
2.1  "Oh yeah, I meant to tell you about that. Stuff sets up kinda quick."
2.2  "A guy named Charlie built all the mountains...
then all of a sudden he just quit comin' around."