The full perspective is that something called HO Monthly started in the late
1940's (published, as I remember
in Philadelphia). The post WWII years saw a boom in model railroading as
veterans returned, settled down,
and all the pent-up demand from war-time critical material scarcities resulted
in all the model railroad projects
that had been put on hold during those years (and people had a lot more money
to spend than in the Depression).
It was actually quite a decent journal with a regular narrow gage column when
narrow gage was a highly-specialized
interest. Around the early '50's it was bought out by Kalmbach and turned into
Model Trains, with an emphasis on
beginners and younger modelers--probably a good business decision to complement
the more advanced clientale
in MRR. Kalmbach's MT was not that bad--there were construction articles and
the regular "Railroads You Can
Model" featuring interesting prototypes--until about 1960 when it was
discontinued. That is probably what you
remember, although I think they often had a few articles in each issue with
simple trackplans, frequently ones
featuring sectional track, both the Atlas Snap-track which was coming in with
ready-to-run sets and Lionel and AF.
Over the years other hobby publications have come and gone, some addressed to
more specialized audiences,
such as the Gazette have flourished (relatively) with MRJ, Prototype Modeler,
and even Mainline Modeler have
succumbed. The several S scale magazines have been particularly vulnerable to
loss of driving forces willing
to underwrite their existence with money and writing; often when a single
individual loses motivation to
solicit the articles which lead buyers to subscribe. And ALL print journals
have wrestled with increasing production
costs, including relentless mailing costs. We are still a work in progress
with electonic publishing.
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
> When I was in the upper classes of grade school, I put my coins into a
> subscription to Model Trains magazine--MR's little brother. I think it
> was about $2.50 for six issues--about what I could afford. After a year
> they announced a slogan change that made it an HO only magazine. It's
> was just a few months after that they folder the magazine. I don't know
> if the HO change caused it to fail or perhaps it was long in coming, but
> anytime a magazine eliminates a portion of it's potential readership
> from consideration they lose subscribers.
>
> Since Kalmbach also publishes Classic Toy Trains you would will likely
> never see any pure AF layouts in Model Railroader, but as I mentioned
> you will see S scale articles and features in proportion to what they
> feel will sell magazines. My involvement with them was along with Don
> Thompson, Don DeWitt and perhaps others in the 50th Anniversary of S
> Scale. That was sometime in the mid 80's, so your 1967 date is incorrect.
>
> If one compares the readership of the magazines (they've all lost some
> pretty sizable numbers, with several at zero), MR still ranks well above
> RMC or any of the other magazines past or present. What magazines you
> purchase personally might not have any bearing on where S could pickup
> converts. Case in point, if you're looking for a performance car you
> might purchase Car & Driver or Motor Trend, however if you looking to do
> some radical body or performance modifications those magazines are
> totally useless!
>
> Bob Werre
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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