Both RMC and MR came today

[Albert in N]

The mail came this morning (May 31, 2014) with both May 2014 Railroad Model Craftsman and July 2014 Model Railroader.  Maybe MR is a little ahead of the game, but it works for them and OK with me.  However RMC is dragging.  For example, RMC product news for Micro Trains N cars includes a Skelly Oil tank car that has been on my layout for over a month (ordered 4-12-2014 and came within a week).  Also, the May Events in RMC Timetable section have already occurred.   Does anyone have news on RMC since they have seemingly been off schedule for several months?   I had emailed RMC subscription but no reply, and nothing about schedule delays is posted on their web site. 

[davefoxx]

Model Railroader has always been one month ahead (e.g., July issue received at or around the beginning of June) for as long as I can remember.  I would think that this has to do with an issue remaining "current" for a few weeks on the newsstand.  I received my MR issue today, too!

DFF

[jmlaboda]

As I recall RMC has been a month or two behind MR product reviews for a number of years now, upwards of up to three- to four-months between when MR did a product review and they they would.  After over 40 years of reading both I just got use to it, especially if the RMC review revealed problems that MR glossed over because it was a good advertiser (yes, it has been going on for a long time).  But I have never really known either to be late, though one issue of [MR] literally got lost in the mail, arriving around the time they sent me another copy of that issue (getting them at hobby shops or news stands, the latter being roughly a month after subscription holders would receive theirs).  This has also been asked about on other forums and groups as well.

One thing I only realized in the past month is that it has been roughly six months or more since I have looked at either one with an eye towards buying them, because of winter being so rough this year,... and I DON'T MISS THEM!!!  Between eZines like (Model Railroad Hobbyist, The Keystone Modeler, Seaboard - Coast Line Modeler and others), forums and Yahoo! Groups (I am a member of 254 Yahoo! Groups with roughly a third of them sending me emails). I have more than enough to chew on as far as ideas go and sites like Rail Pictures, RR Picture Archives and others helps me stay abreast of news on the many roads I am interested in.

Really never thought I would see the day when I could say this... the model magazines have always been an important part of "my hobby" (and I have the full boxes of magazines to prove that) but I just don't need them any more... at least not to the extent I use too.

I just don't need them per se, though I would still like to subscribe to N-scale and N-scale Railroading once bills ease up for me.  The value of these two are too great to ignore though I do wish they were digital as well.

[Wardie]

RMC has been behind since Hurricane Sandy disrupted their publication schedule, they have been gaining a little bit at a time.

[Albert in N]

A couple of months after Hurricane Sandy, I visited the RMC (Carstens Publications) booth at a train show.  I asked them about delays, plus purchased Railfan For Life.  One of the RMC reps said that Hurricane Sandy did disrupt things, but the main problem was that the new printing vendor had changed formats.  (RMC outsources printing and had changed vendors.)  Now for over a year later, they remain behind; and it seems worse recently.  I doubt that Hal would have let this happen; may he R.I.P.  Has anyone recently been to a train show and asked RMC (Carstens Publications) about RMC delays?  Since RMC is one of the only magazines offering free train event announcements in their Timetable, it is relevant.  Also, the magazine content is great!

[OldEastRR]

My experiences in the print publication business makes me believe the problem is payments to the outsourced printer. Every print media I've been involved with that fell behind in  publishing schedules did so because of unpaid bills to the publishers.

[Chris333]

I wonder who prints them?

[rschaffter]

Really never thought I would see the day when I could say this... the model magazines have always been an important part of "my hobby" (and I have the full boxes of magazines to prove that) but I just don't need them any more... at least not to the extent I use too.

I let my subscription to MR lapse a few years back, and haven’t missed it.  I still get RMC and N Scale...

[LIRR]

My MR subscription is up this summer. I have been a subscriber since 1973, but I won't be renewing. It's under 90 pages regularly now. Typical issue used to be 140. Articles are getting increasingly repetitive and/or lame.

[peteski]

My MR subscription is up this summer. I have been a subscriber since 1973, but I won't be renewing. It's under 90 pages regularly now. Typical issue used to be 140. Articles are getting increasingly repetitive and/or lame.

..and the price is constantly creeping up. You can thank Internet for most of this.  Why pay for a magazine when there is plenty of useful info available on the Web?  Just look at the info available just on this forum (where you can also have a direct 2-way info exchange between people).  As for the number of pages, the missing stuff is mostly pages and pages of ads. Compare the magazine layout from today and from pre-internet days. There were lots of full-page or multi-page ads.  Those are mostly gone. So are pages of classified ads.

[mmagliaro]

Oddly enough, I find myself in disagreement about the state of MR.  I am a staunch supporter of RMC, because they are one of the few true craftsman-oriented magazines left (perhaps the only one).

I don't subscribe to either, but I do buy them off the newsstand when I see something of interest in them, which is about 3-4 times per year.

As for MR, I would routinely look at it as a "coffee table" magazine that published no real craftsman, how-to, or in-depth pieces with any meat.   But over the past year, more and more, they seem to be putting more "how-to" pieces back in there.  To be sure, they would have a long way to go to be like the MR of the 1960s, or even the 1980s.  But I think they are swinging back and I find myself finding more issues of MR to be interesting enough to buy off the newsstand than I did in years past.

I really hope the late publication dates from RMC don't mean they are having financial problems. 

[PAL_Houston]

I still subscribe to MR, but now it's digitally, on my Nook.  This is good because I take that Nook pretty much everywhere to access internet for both work and fun.  In odd moments I can go skim thru MR, or SI or Time.  Cost is less than for the print version,  I still enjoy reading some of the articles by Andy Sperandeo and Jim Hediger.

I still get the RMC hardcopy edition, but find myself much less impressed with it than I was a few years ago.  They used to have a fair amount of prototype info, like the "Front of the Layout Vigniettes" series, or scale drawings paired with scratch-building articles on the same subject,  but it seems these have largely fallen by the wayside recently.  And I find I am bored by a lot of the other stuff they print. 

This month's featured layout in RMC is really cool, I thought, but did you notice that very few of the rolling stock on this month's featured layout are weathered?   I did!  Makes me feel better about the lack of weathering on my rolling stock!!   

[basementcalling]

Haven't subscribed to either in years, but my local Barnes and Noble and Wal Mart have MR in the magazine rack. Go figure.

I actually thought that for a summer issue, this MR was better than a few recent ones at putting more than beginner type articles in front of subscribers. Kalmbach made a philosophical decision a while back on a direction to take their publication. I went a different direction with my modeling. But I still like to look on occasion.

I have no idea why, but I find reading a magazine on my Nook quite annoying and not as satisfying as books.

[Kisatchie]

I resubscribed to Model Railroad Craftsman in 2012-13, hoping to get some factory/business/freight station plans so I could scratchbuild them. I think I found one (count 'em, one) set of plans I could use for the entire year. Definitely not cost efficient.


Hmm... and all the beer
Kiz drinks IS cost
efficient...???

[Chris333]

Saw this today:
http://mrr.trains.com/sitecore/content/home/articles/2014/06/closing-of-magazine-wholesaler-effects-model-railroader