Dan’s Train Blog

So Model Railroader (MR), my NMRA membership, and Railroad Model Craftsman (RMC) subscriptions all came up at about the same time.

I usually subscribe to Model Railroader two or three years at a time. Sorry MR, not this year: I signed up for one year. RMC gets a two year subscription and the NMRA one more year.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

How do you judge whether an issue is good or bad? I do it by how many good articles are in the issue. A “good” article is one that I will still refer to years later – either for content or visuals.

In looking at this stack of magazines I see that I also weigh in some other factors – in this order:

The cover image. Sad but true. A good cover image really pulls me in and makes me want to look inside. If the picture on the cover is good I’m more than half way to feeling the whole issue is going to be good.

The articles. Next clearly are the articles in the magazine. A good series like Olson or Furlow’s layout series almost make it a slam dunk.

Lastly: editorials and regular columns. If the first two things are good; the cover art and the articles, I am much more likely to settle down and read all the editorial and regular column content.

These are what I found when I would go through all these issues trying to get a handle on what made an issue “good” versus “bad.”

As I looked at each issue I would give it a score of one for each item that I liked about the issue. I found that editorials and regular columns did not really count in my overall scoring: if there was a lousy cover and no good articles, it simply did not matter that Wescott’s editorial was brilliant.

Scores ranged from 0 = bad issue to 3 = great issue.

Just looking at my color coding things seem to go to crap around 1987. After that there are occaional good or great issues (2′s or 3′s)  but lots of loser issues. Mostly loser issues. Although the magazine grew in size under Larson, the quality of his last six years looks much lower than his first 10 years.

Sperandeo batted about 375 (3 issues out of the dirt) but only two great issues over 8 years. Admittedly, I’m only looking at August but frankly, this does fit pretty closely what I’ve felt about Model Railraoder for a long time.

On this survey it’s hard to tell how Thompson is doing. That one 2005 issue was really good. I hope he can keep it up.

I’ll be continuing with some concrete examples of what I think are good articles and covers — as well as some exmples of bad stuff.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

Sean asked how or if the page count correlates with the editor at the time. Good question. Did the editor do it? Looking at August issues Model Railroader since 1966, it has had four editors.

Linn Wescott from 1966 to 1977

Russ Larson from 1978 to 1993

Andy Sperandeo from 1994 to 2001

Terry Thompson from 2002 to 2006

Linn Wescott and Russ Larson were the editors while the Model Railroader was growing.

Things went poorly during Andy Sperandeo and Terry Thompson’s leadership. I do not know enough to say they caused the decline seen in MR but it’s clear they were unable to prevent the decline in Model Railroader.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

How has the size of the Model Railroader changed over the last 40 years?

Size in a magazine can be complicated since it is a combination of content plus advertising. However, when times are good there is lots of advertising so the page count should go up. This was certainly true for technology magazines in the 1990′s. I remember when it was starting to look like WIRED magazine was going to challenge the phone book in size.

Then came the Internet/Tech crash and WIRED got very very skinny. MR got a bit slimmer too.

Since 1966 Model Railroader shows 30 years of growth followed by 10 years of shrinking size.

So the size plateaus in the early 1990’s and noses downwards around 1996. Now the size of MR is like it was in the late 1970′s. But in the 70′s the magazine was growing. Now the magazine is on a decline. 

I’m sure this tracks to circulation data for MR but does this track to the quality of the issues? Did the quality and excitement inside the magazine stop in the 90s or were external forces to blame?

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

How has the cost of Model Railroader changed over the last 40 years?

The cover price has gone from 50 cents to $5.50. Accounting for inflation the price has gone from $3.00 to $5.28 in constant 2005 dollars. Per page it has been 3-5 cents per page throughout.

Overall, the cost of Model Railroader has been pretty steady over the years.

The bigger question is how’s the value of the magazine held up?

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

What has changed in Model Railroader over the last 40 years? I know that Model Railroader is just not as inspiring as it used to be. Is it me or them? In many email groups  many other people also complaining about the quality of Model Railroader (MR). But is this a real issue, factually true or just a feeling?

I decided to collect the August issue of each year I have and compare them. My collection of MR goes back to 1966 so I looked at 1966 to 2006 (ok, so it’s really 41 years of August!).

I’ll start with easy things to measure like cost and page count and go on to harder measures that are increasingly (and unavoidably) my opinion.
 

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9