Clear the Garage II

Continuing my journey through my 55 years of paper MR issues, I have run through the 60s and 70s. The magazine was pretty steady through the 60s. 70 to 90 pages and 50 cents a copy, then we hit the rapid increases in price and pages: $0.65, $0.75, $1, $1.25, $1.50. But now we had color and 150 to 200 pages per issue.

Layouts at the time were center islands. You could guess their size by counting the number of access hatches embedded in them. The Smith cartoons went from 1 or 2 per issue to occasional status and the humor seemed to have changed. (I thought maybe someone else was writing under his by-line.)

The MR humor continues:

 1.1  “It sure is good to run the trains again. During the steel strike, in order to be true to prototype, my pike had to be idle.”
1.2   Termites with Diner’s Club Card
2.1  “Couls it wait a minute, Mac? Our leader is in the middle of a tricky train movement.”
2.2  “Train 711 for New Ritus, Clunkneyville and Chicago arriving on Track One.”
3.1  “Something tells me this picture isn’t going to be too authentic.”
3.2  “You and your live steamers.”

1.1  “I still think for a starter, we ought to keep the wiring simple.”
1.2  “Have you seen the latest L&N color scheme? All Black!”
2.1  “I vote we take up the question of couplers tonight.”
2.2  
3.1  “All right! All right! So I’ll move it over a little.”
3.2  “It says, ‘This end up.’”