What is the purpose of the number "712" stenciled above the reporting
marks on this ATSF freight car?

http://hvrm.railfan.net/historical/047_Walkerton_2.html

Bob Witt

Funny, I was just thinking along these lines..... wondering what allowed Model Railroader in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s to regularly have sometimes multiple prototype
drawings in each month's issue...and now, it is an event when a scale drawing appears....and often as not it is a rendered color drawing, not a traditional technical drawing.

It isn't that we've exhausted all the possible subject material. There are scads of Steam Era Freight Cars that haven't been studied or need to be revisited with accurate,
up-to-date coverage. And, while outside of the scope of this list and my interests, there certainly have been many things added to the rosters of railroads that have not received coverage.

I know how much time and effort go into creating presentation drawings. Perhaps it is a matter of cost....

I am somewhat surprised that we have not seen CAD-generated drawings to the degree that might be expected. One would think that the advent of CAD would have developed
a fraternity of delineators working in AutoCad, CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator 2D, or perhaps SolidWorks or Alibre Design 3D. The ability to build a library of "parts" (trucks, couplers, other
hardware) and ability to efficiently generate "phases" or variations of locomotives and rolling stock should have INCREASED the appearance of presentation drawings. AFAIK this has not
happened nor has a network of people doing such work.

The loss of Bob Hundman and Mainline Modeler, with his prolific old-school pen-and-ink drafted locomotive and freight car drawings, has been substantial. I haven't tried to research it, but it
is likely that he surpassed the "Dean" of Railroad Drawings, J.Harold Giessel, in terms of volume and certainly in accuracy. Railroad Model Craftsman seems to be including drawings and their
having the Essential Freight Cars series certainly has gone a long way to fill the Mainline Modeler void.

We already appreciate the RPC series; I am not sure that a "Steam Era Modeler" or perhaps "Transition Era Modeler" magazine would not be viable as at least a quarterly publication. The
price would have to be more in line with the $15 that the Japanese monthlies cost or perhaps more towards the $30 range if heavy with drawings and prototype photos...maybe in a oversize
format to allow reproduction of locomotive drawings on single pages (more of a MR/Hundman Cyclopedia format). Such a publication would have to be supported by sales as I doubt that it would
attract major advertisers.

On another tack, what do you think the value of a series of publications that would present scanned railroad drawings.... perhaps by railroad, locomotive or car type, with minimal commentary
text with some supporting photographs? Some titles might be "EMD F3 Lettering & Painting Drawings", "Equipment Diagrams of the CB&Q", "Railroad Lettering Stencil Drawings", etc...

Charlie Vlk , .

Tg

Fu

10 years ago I'd drop by the hobby shop and buy at least two or three
magazines a month. Today's different with discussions groups such as
this Yahoo group and I'm a different modeler than I was ten years ago.
I focus on a very unique timeframe and model a specific area.
Magazines have become expensive and I the last time I bought MR or RMC
was months ago. MR's Great Model Railroads is a good series but I buy
it only for the scenery ideas. What's impacted the decline of the
modeling magazines is the great layout web sites out there and several
of the historical societies have online magazines. The hobby is just
changing due to the ease of the internet.

Hello Al,

To get a definitive answer you'll probably have to write Martin Lofton a letter, or use the
telephone. I can tell you that for the past few years I've brought my own laptop and plugged
it into whatever projector was set up in the room. I've never had any problem doing that.

So long,

Andy

Armand Premo wrote:

While I must admit that I am more familiar with roads in New England, but by observing freight yard photos of other areas of the country I have concluded that there is the strong likelihood that I will not see as many Pennsy cars (of all types) in Los Angles as I will in Boston or more UP cars in Omaha than in Baltimore.

We have indeed discussed this at considerable length before, Armand, and possibly you were not on the list for that period. (You can consult list archives very usefully.) But Tim Gilbert, Dave Nelson and others analyzed data exhaustively from many sources, and all pointed to the same conclusion: the national (yes, national, not regional) distribution of free-running cars like box cars is that of the proportions of the car fleets. In other words your conclusion is wrong, on the average.
As Mike Brock correctly points out, this does not necessarily tell us anything about an individual TRAIN, nor about a specialized yard which might be serving a specific industry with assigned cars. But it does tell us about regional differences. In effect, it shows that the system of free-running cars nationally really DID have them running freely.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

"Steam Era Modeler" magazine

John Golden

Where can I subscribe???

SGL

Gentlemen,

The anticipated loss of RMJ is just a form of evolution. The hobby is
not dying--it is evolving at a fast pace. Something else will take the
place of MM, RMJ and Ding. All of the e-zines are wonderful and are
terrific resources, but I think there is still a place for high-
quality printed magazines (NG&SL Gazette is the best example). Perhaps
a "Steam Era Modeler" magazine or something like that (required
content) will emerge from the fray.

I think I just woke up the Moderator...

John

John Golden
Bloomington, IN

Folks,

Does Sunshine Models have the projector and laptop PC loaded with PPT there to just drop a CD into for ones presentation at Naperville? Does someone collect all the PPT presentations ahead of time and make sure they are ready to go ahead of time?

Al Kresse

I see a vacuum here that I hope the editor of MR or the editor of RMC perceives as well. The potential is for the editor of the one or the other to dedicate a section of each monthly issue to prototype modeling. That focus could range from offering accurate plans, to how one does it articles, and many issues of details. Although its majority emphasis would be for modelers in HO, it could from time to time include articles about modeling in N, S, or O.

The articles written by Ted Culotta in RMC have lead the way. More remains to be done. If it were to happen, my money would be on RMC, but there are always surprises.

Tom

I was willing to put up with the typos and editorial errors etc and
even coverage outside of my area of interest but dropped my
subscription after too many reprint articles I had already read as an
earlier reader of the mag. I will miss their approach esp coverage of
frieght cars but not their (I think) somewhat dishonest use of
reprinted articles on the guise of "updates".

Jerry Glow

--- In STMFC@..., tgregmrtn@... wrote:

schuyler writes:




Certainly for limited interest magazines like RMJ, that's possible.

Look at

TKM, which is pretty successful.

What I see happening is that modelers with any sophistication

about what

they're really interested in have two simple options:

1) join a RRHS, which increasingly offer magazines at least as

well-produced

as RMJ was. They generally don't hav thee tpyos that RMC has a lot

either.

(RMC is my vote for the best magazine in spite of that.)

2) join an email list, like this one, or a list about specific

railroads.

There are many. Some more modeling oriented, some more prototype

information

oriented. Some are both.

Of course, a case can be made that TKM (and others like it) were a

stake in

the heart of RMJ and
MRR'ding.

SGL

-----Original Message-----
From: _STMFC@..._ (mailto:STMFC@...)

[mailto:_STMFC@..._ (mailto:STMFC@...) ] On Behalf Of

Kurt

Laughlin

Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 12:54 PM
To: _STMFC@..._ (mailto:STMFC@...)
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: RAILMODEL JOURNAL

I'd expect the end of print magazines before the end of the

hobby itself.

KL

I disagree, I believe that there will always be a printed magazine

for the

modeler, providing we are still doing this in the future. I can't

see myself

getting on board a commercial flight without an RMC or MR (only if

there is a

good article from Paul Dolkos inside) in hand. There is a time when

after

dealing with computers all week long I just want something to relax

and read

that doesn't have too many opinions (other than mine and the

authors) involved.

I don't subscribe or even buy every issue, but I don't download

every issue

of TKM either. I don't belong to NMRA so I have never seen an

issue of their

magazine. I heard they changed the name from the Bulletin?
I do once in a while escape to HYPER SCALE.com for a break, ad see

how the

military folks are doing.
I just can't see a day when the printed word will be completely

gone and I

hope there is not an attempt from those remaining to be a situation

of the

"last man standing..." Both serve separate markets and I would hope

my Grandsons

would have an opportunity, as I did, to go to the school library

and relax

with a copy of Boy's Life and Model Railroader, what could be

finer.

Hey, who among us can remember Bob Schleicher's article in Boy's

Life many,

many years ago? I think I still have the copy in the garage... What

does that

say about my age and my ability to be a pack rat? That article was

very

inspiring at a time when my Grandfather told my brother and I

that, "idle hands

are the Devil's workshop..." Kinda stuck with me.
Greg Martin









**************Looking for a car that's sporty, fun and fits in your

budget?

Read reviews on AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?

ncid=aolaut00050000000017 )

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Looks like a gremlin got into my text when I was trying to edit my post about RMJ before sending it.

The 4th paragraph starting with ", should have read "early Model Railroading and RMJ has had since Bob took it over and ran it .

List,

I agree with Greg on this one. A lot of people work with computers all day long and the last thing that they want to look at is another computer screen.

Bob Scleicher's retrospective on how he took 1001 Model Railroading Ideas from a rag to a magazine that really catered to the budding prototype modelers and how he left that magazine to start and ran RMJ up to the present really hits home with me.

I have every issue of of MR from 1945, RMC from 1947, MM from beginning to end, 1001 Railroading Ideas from the time Dick made it over from a rag to when Randy Lee shut it down and every issue of RMJ to this last issue. This does not count Trains 1940-present and Railroad Man's Magazine from the early teens to the 70's.

Every one of these magazines had some freight car content, but none of them had the volume that the early Model Railroading and RMJ has had since Dick took it over. I learned more about freight cars and the railroads that ran them from Bob's magazine's in-depth articles on freight cars than any other, including the 38.5 years as a professional railroader.

We were fortunate that we had some of the best freight car experts writing the in-depth articles and we all know who they are as many are members of this list. I hope that either Bob or someone like him picks up the pen and begins to publish another magazine to replace it.

I belong to two Railroad Historical Societies, but it would be financially impossible to belong to all of them or to buy published articles from all of them. A number of the Societies have on-line magazines, but not all. The TKM, B&O Modeler and the ACL/SCL Modeler are very good, don't get me wrong, as I enjoy the articles as they are well written and very good. But,it becomes very expensive to print out all of the on-line magazines that are available. Some people like to have this stuff on disc and cart a laptop around, but there is nothing better than the printed word. You do not have to migrate the data every few years when the next generation of operating systems comes out or the discs begin to go bad, or you managed to damage one of them. This not even taking into account the fact that you have to have a power source or a load of batteries to power the equipment so you can read from your electronic toy.

No, give me a good magazine that covers the subjects like RMJ, RP CYC and others do and I am happy. I can take it to the reading room, the front porch or the basement and even to Naperville. It is the only way to truly relax and enjoy the freight car hobby and the incidentals that go with it.

Tom Olsen
7 Boundary Road, West Branch
Newark, Delaware, 19711-7479
(302) 738-4292
tmolsen@...
Attachment: Message 2259 (26k bytes) Open

Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:30:42 EDT
From: tgregmrtn@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: RAILMODEL JOURNAL
To: STMFC@...

I disagree, I believe that there will always be a printed magazine for the modeler, providing we are still doing this in the future. I can't see myself getting on board a commercial flight without an RMC or MR (only if there is a
good article from Paul Dolkos inside) in hand. There is a time when after dealing with computers all week long I just want something to relax and read that doesn't have too many opinions (other than mine and the authors) involved.

I don't subscribe or even buy every issue, but I don't download every issue of TKM either. I don't belong to NMRA so I have never seen an issue of their magazine. I heard they changed the name from the Bulletin? I do once in a while escape to HYPER SCALE.com for a break, ad see how the military folks are doing.

I just can't see a day when the printed word will be completely gone and I hope there is not an attempt from those remaining to be a situation of the "last man standing..." Both serve separate markets and I would hope my Grandsons
would have an opportunity, as I did, to go to the school library and relax with a copy of Boy's Life and Model Railroader, what could be finer.

Hey, who among us can remember Bob Schleicher's article in Boy's Life many, many years ago? I think I still have the copy in the garage... What does that say about my age and my ability to be a pack rat? That article was very inspiring at a time when my Grandfather told my brother and I that, "idle hands are the Devil's workshop..." Kinda stuck with me.
Greg Martin

schuyler writes:




Certainly for limited interest magazines like RMJ, that's possible. Look at
TKM, which is pretty successful.

What I see happening is that modelers with any sophistication about what
they're really interested in have two simple options:

1) join a RRHS, which increasingly offer magazines at least as well-produced
as RMJ was. They generally don't hav thee tpyos that RMC has a lot either.
(RMC is my vote for the best magazine in spite of that.)

2) join an email list, like this one, or a list about specific railroads.
There are many. Some more modeling oriented, some more prototype information
oriented. Some are both.

Of course, a case can be made that TKM (and others like it) were a stake in
the heart of RMJ and
MRR'ding.

SGL

Perhaps the solution is to begin some collaborative indexing project
in the group. There seems to be a varied geographic distribution of
members and distribution of railroads modeled and historical society
memberships held. There are probably enough subscriptions held by
group members to cover several railroads many times over.

If members of both this group and certain historical societies could
post the tables of contents of the various magazines or show links to
TOC's that are hosted at the society websites then people could buy or
download those issues wanted directly from the historical societies in
question.

For those who are interested, the B&ORRHS has a listing of Sentinel
Topics from 1984 to 2007 in excel format on our archives page at:

http://www.borhs.org/Archives/Archives.htm

The B&O Modeler also maintains an on-line index from its home page at:

http://borhs.org/ModelerMag/index.html

We also now have a reprint of Painting and Lettering Diagrams for
Freight cars, mainly all from the steam era, available via our company
store. It is not yet online for ordering yet but inquiries can be
made via the society home page.

http://www.borhs.org

Take Care
-Nick Fry
Archivist
Director at Large B&O Railroad Historical Society

http://www.borhs.org


--- In STMFC@..., "Jack Burgess" <jack@...> wrote:

The problem is that, even if you model a large prototype (NYC, ATSF, SP,
etc.), you still need to model freight cars from other

railroads...it would

be costly and time-consuming to join every RRHS just to get the

information

that you need to model a couple of foreign cars for these other

railroads.

Since I model the YV, I need freight cars from the SP, ATSF, WP, UP,

and a

few from the northwest and some from the larger railroads back east.

I don't

need an SP or ATSF RRHS magazine which includes articles on modeling
stations, cabooses, locomotives, freight traffic, etc.

A couple of days ago I received a Summer 2008 Product List from Sunshine.
I've added it to my unofficial Sunshine site www.sunshinekits.com
<http://www.sunshinekits.com/> . Use the Current Price List link. And along
with that there are more flyers available. All flyers numbered 40 and up are
now online as well as the 29 series (war emergency boxcars), accessible via
the Flyers by RR link.

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon

I stopped RMJ several years ago because:

There was little on modeling the early era equipment which is of most interest to me. They had some of that in earlier issues, but it dried up.

Almost all of the freight cars covered were either post 1950 or modern, again useless for my needs.

Every article had a long list of articles in previous issues. That was a large waste of space and just filler in my opinion. A good list of other soures of interest would be useful, but not a list of anything similar in previous issues of RMJ.

But RMJ did encourage folks to model a prototype railroad (instead of using some made up name), something I have done for about 40 years.

Cyril Durrenberger

Schuyler Larrabee <schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote:

I wrote:

two simple options:
1) join a RRHS, which increasingly offer magazines at least as
well-produced as RMJ was. They
generally don't hav thee tpyos that RMC has a lot either. (RMC
is my vote for the best magazine in
spite of that.)

Jack Burgess wrote, in his usual lucid style . . .:

The problem is that, even if you model a large prototype (NYC, ATSF, SP,
etc.), you still need to model freight cars from other railroads...*snip*. I don't
need an SP or ATSF RRHS magazine which includes articles on modeling
stations, cabooses, locomotives, freight traffic, etc.

Since there is more and more interest in modeling prototype railroads, I
wish that the hobby would evolve into a hybrid:

1. MR spends less pages on beginner articles (most of those techniques are
covered in their book series anyway) and takes on a more prototype format
ala RMJ.

I may well let the MR subscription lapse when it runs out, as I'm not, really not, interested in
being "introduced to model railroading AGAIN!"

2. Historic societies make general interest articles (such as on freight
cars) available for purchase on the Internet using a PDF format and which
could be purchased through PayPal or via a subscription service. The
availability of such new articles could be announced via this list, just as
TKM issues are announced.

This is a good idea, and ELHS has been looking into this, but not very far yet.

3. If this last idea takes off, all of the articles could be made available
via a single source/website run as a business, with the website making a
couple of dollars and the historical societies getting the rest. Yes,
someone could buy one copy of an article and give it to friends but
hopefully this wouldn't impact the concept. I suspect that many modelers buy
RMC just for a Ted Culotta article and RMC is $7.00....I would think that a
similar article available from a historical society could easily be sold
over the Internet for $5.00. The RRHS wouldn't be missing anything since
those interested in joining for the entire magazine would still join and
those who want just a freight car article won't join for just that benefit
but might purchase those articles via the Internet.

Well, there is something we're both leaving out, Jack. Advertising. I read the magazines three
times: First an overview skimming. Second a quick harder look at the promising articles. Third, a
pretty close look at the advertisements. It's one of the best ways to be aware of what is out
there, and what is new. And also, what is out there that you didn't need until now . . .

I don't think I want to see a site with a lot of blinking flashing ads as a solution either.

SGL

Schuyler added:

Well, there is something we're both leaving out, Jack.
Advertising. I read the magazines three
times: First an overview skimming. Second a quick harder look
at the promising articles. Third, a
pretty close look at the advertisements. It's one of the best
ways to be aware of what is out
there, and what is new. And also, what is out there that you
didn't need until now . . .

I don't think I want to see a site with a lot of blinking
flashing ads as a solution either.

I agree...."MR" magazines are the only ones that in which I actually look at
the ads. (Although it is slim pickings for me since I don't buy R-T-R
freight cars, structure kits, diesels, steam engines...) But my idea wasn't
intended to be a replacement for "paper" magazines, only as a way to get
more of the information that "we" want...

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com

I wrote:

two simple options:
1) join a RRHS, which increasingly offer magazines at least as
well-produced as RMJ was. They
generally don't hav thee tpyos that RMC has a lot either. (RMC
is my vote for the best magazine in
spite of that.)

Jack Burgess wrote, in his usual lucid style . . .:

The problem is that, even if you model a large prototype (NYC, ATSF, SP,
etc.), you still need to model freight cars from other railroads...*snip*. I don't
need an SP or ATSF RRHS magazine which includes articles on modeling
stations, cabooses, locomotives, freight traffic, etc.

Since there is more and more interest in modeling prototype railroads, I
wish that the hobby would evolve into a hybrid:

1. MR spends less pages on beginner articles (most of those techniques are
covered in their book series anyway) and takes on a more prototype format
ala RMJ.

I may well let the MR subscription lapse when it runs out, as I'm not, really not, interested in
being "introduced to model railroading AGAIN!"

2. Historic societies make general interest articles (such as on freight
cars) available for purchase on the Internet using a PDF format and which
could be purchased through PayPal or via a subscription service. The
availability of such new articles could be announced via this list, just as
TKM issues are announced.

This is a good idea, and ELHS has been looking into this, but not very far yet.

3. If this last idea takes off, all of the articles could be made available
via a single source/website run as a business, with the website making a
couple of dollars and the historical societies getting the rest. Yes,
someone could buy one copy of an article and give it to friends but
hopefully this wouldn't impact the concept. I suspect that many modelers buy
RMC just for a Ted Culotta article and RMC is $7.00....I would think that a
similar article available from a historical society could easily be sold
over the Internet for $5.00. The RRHS wouldn't be missing anything since
those interested in joining for the entire magazine would still join and
those who want just a freight car article won't join for just that benefit
but might purchase those articles via the Internet.

Well, there is something we're both leaving out, Jack. Advertising. I read the magazines three
times: First an overview skimming. Second a quick harder look at the promising articles. Third, a
pretty close look at the advertisements. It's one of the best ways to be aware of what is out
there, and what is new. And also, what is out there that you didn't need until now . . .

I don't think I want to see a site with a lot of blinking flashing ads as a solution either.

SGL

Gentlemen,Don't ignore the valuable resources available through the NEB&W RPI group.Armand Premo

Schuyler wrote:

What I see happening is that modelers with any sophistication
about what they're really interested
in have two simple options:
1) join a RRHS, which increasingly offer magazines at least as
well-produced as RMJ was. They
generally don't hav thee tpyos that RMC has a lot either. (RMC
is my vote for the best magazine in
spite of that.)

The problem is that, even if you model a large prototype (NYC, ATSF, SP,
etc.), you still need to model freight cars from other railroads...it would
be costly and time-consuming to join every RRHS just to get the information
that you need to model a couple of foreign cars for these other railroads.
Since I model the YV, I need freight cars from the SP, ATSF, WP, UP, and a
few from the northwest and some from the larger railroads back east. I don't
need an SP or ATSF RRHS magazine which includes articles on modeling
stations, cabooses, locomotives, freight traffic, etc.

Since there is more and more interest in modeling prototype railroads, I
wish that the hobby would evolve into a hybrid:

1. MR spends less pages on beginner articles (most of those techniques are
covered in their book series anyway) and takes on a more prototype format
ala RMJ.
2. Historic societies make general interest articles (such as on freight
cars) available for purchase on the Internet using a PDF format and which
could be purchased through PayPal or via a subscription service. The
availability of such new articles could be announced via this list, just as
TKM issues are announced.
3. If this last idea takes off, all of the articles could be made available
via a single source/website run as a business, with the website making a
couple of dollars and the historical societies getting the rest. Yes,
someone could buy one copy of an article and give it to friends but
hopefully this wouldn't impact the concept. I suspect that many modelers buy
RMC just for a Ted Culotta article and RMC is $7.00....I would think that a
similar article available from a historical society could easily be sold
over the Internet for $5.00. The RRHS wouldn't be missing anything since
those interested in joining for the entire magazine would still join and
those who want just a freight car article won't join for just that benefit
but might purchase those articles via the Internet.

Jack Burgess
www.yosemitevalleyrr.com