Kalmbach rail magazines, Trains.com sold to Firecrown Media

[nachoman]

I was just going to log on to start a similar thread

I get the print version for the past two years, after a few decades hiatus. My 7 year old loves it and looks forward to it every month. I like to browse it and am making a conscious effort to do things that don't involve a screen (especially a phone screen), considering that is what I do all day at work. Model Railroad Hobbyist is online and free - yet I have little interest in reading it. Like most people, I see a change in the magazine, and get much less enjoyment out of it than I did when I was a teenager. But I am real that change has more to do with changes in the hobby or changes in how I view the world than a negative change in the magazine. In other words, there may be less articles of interest to me, but that has nothing to do with the magazine and more to do with changes in the hobby. Most of the missing volume are ads - and as a kid I certainly liked looking at the ads and dreaming. The lack of ads has more to do with the lack of hobby shops, and that is something I sorely miss. In this whole metro area, there are 3 stores left that carry any model railroad selection at all (excluding hobby lobby) - and even their stock is dwindling. When I was a kid, I think I had 5 hobby shops that carried trains within a 15 minute drive of my house. In addition, there were 2 toy stores that carried toy train items (mostly tyco-bachmann-life-like), plus they sold train stuff at Michael's. That is what I miss, and the change in the magazine is a reflection of that. I also miss articles that dealt more with freelanced railroads, scratchbuilding or kitbashing, and innovative approaches using common items. But I think many in the hobby have moved away from that, and Model Railroader has turned to focus more on prototype accuracy, highlighting new products, and people with a lot of space to build a big layout.

Since renewing my subscription, I have considered submitting articles that I think people would find interesting. I'd like to write articles about my 3x4' HOn3 micro layout, kitbashing an Atlas Turntable using 3-d printed parts, and using what you have. Not sure if the editors would be interested in that. But right now it seems like their website is only half-functional. Perhaps I wait for the dust to settle first.