An Opinion by Jack Shall
Those of you that have been in the hobby for a number of years have no doubt noticed changes in the model railroad magazine industry. It’s obvious that the printed magazines are struggling. The number of pages per issue has been reducing for a number of years in spite of the hefty cover price increases over the same period.
But the content has changed significantly over these years as well. Most of the popular magazines have tried to have a balance of content to appeal to the different skill levels and interests of their readers and for the most part, they did a good job at that. That is, until recent years.
While I don’t consider myself anywhere close to being a fine craftsman, I do enjoy (in fact prefer) to read articles on scratch building, and advanced methods and techniques. I’ve noticed less and less of this content. Indeed, many of the magazines that catered to the higher level modeler (such as Mainline Modeler, for one) have long ago met their demise. Sure, there are still good articles being printed, but they are becoming scarcer by the year. Some have lamented that it’s a sign of the times, where one doesn’t need to spend hours and hours scratch building or kit bashing when there are so many exquisite models available that are either ready built or easy-to-assemble kits.
At any rate, I’ve dropped subscription after subscription, the most recent being Model Railroader. I had been buying that magazine monthly since 1962, but the last two editors of the rag have taken it in an entirely different direction . . . one that simply doesn’t interest me. I would dare make the statement that the magazine died when Andy Sperandeo stepped down from the editor’s helm.
That leaves me with one sole print subscription, that being Railroad Model Craftsman. I’ve also been buying their publication since the early 60s, and yes, it has slipped somewhat as well. However it still usually has something each month that interests me, hence I’ll continue buying it for the time being.
The new kid on the block is Model Railroad Hobbyist. If you’ve not heard of these guys, you should take a little time to check them out. It’s an online publication that’s been around for 3 or 4 years now. It has grown into a monthly issue, and the content is getting better all the time. They’re still experiencing growing pains, and they have a limited number of resources and contributors at this time, but that is steadily improving with each issue as well. But what I really like about their magazine is the resurgence of the craftsman type articles. I may not be up to that skill level, but the articles do tend to inspire me anyway.
I’m somewhat excited by this magazine simply because it is fresh and growing, and it seems headed in a direction that I like (quite refreshing considering what I’ve said above about their competition). I hope their “subscription” base continues to grow because that will ultimately benefit all of us that read the magazine.
Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? Yes, that’s right . . . free. It is ad supported, and while advertisements usually aggravate me, in this case they don’t. After all, the ads are all about trains. To be fair, I read the ads in all model railroad magazines, not just MRH. Also associated with the magazine is an online forum, which I’ve enjoyed reading for the past year.
Check them out and see for yourself: Model Railroad Hobbyist.
You can read the magazine online, or download it to your computer as a PDF file. The price is right, and the worse you’ll lose is a bit of your time reading it.
-Jack