If You had to choose only 1??????

[Brakie]

One (other) thing I find annoying are infomercial articles, like the laser-cut article in N Scale. It claims not be a how-to article but, after the coloring of the wood parts, presents as exactly that. It's one thing to present new technique while showing off a product, but when the technique's already been beaten to death (in other publications), like powder coloring wood has been of late, then it's nothing but advertising.

Until recently MR was the leader in infomercial articles and while I found some useful,I found others laughable since the product wasn't nothing more then another unneeded gimmick.

Before I am ripped for being a  MR basher let me add this tidbit..MR is one of the four monthly magazines that arrives in my P.O.Box..

[sirenwerks]

When the opportunity presents itself, I'm sure I could easily secure permission from the WMRHS to use images from their collection.  It's sort of what they live for...
Lee

That's kinda what I had in the back of my head, there's stuff that's really not that hard to find if you look. The GN and NP historical societies act similarly and have gotten to the point of making records (including a significant selection of drawings) easily available online. There's plenty of PRR car diagrams available online too. There's the stuff available that's accessible through the Yahoo groups (to seek out permission for). And then there's the public domain stuff on the LOC and HAB websites, WPA images, etc.

David, I get what you're saying about the cost of a time-consuming research, measuring, a knowledgeable draftsman, etc. for detailed drawings; but there's more basic imagery and information available and more easily accessible via the web. And IMHO it's the passionate article writer's duty to find it and point it out to the publisher. But in some cases the article writer may not want that or the writing is poor so as to present little or questionable prototype info.

[Brakie]

But in some cases the article writer may not want that or the writing is poor so as to present little or questionable prototype info.

That has bother me for years..Even when the writer adds measurements I wonder how accurate they are especially if the measurements was taken in the field instead from official plans.

[wm3798]

Ah, but the caveat to using WMRHS images would be that I would need to dedicate a day (at least) and a tank of gas to doing the digging myself in their library.  Neither of these are a small consideration at this point.

Lee