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ANOTHER GREAT FRISCO RAFFLE!

Carstens, RMC, Railroad Magazine etc.

Discussion in 'General' started by TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 21, 2014.

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  1. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 21, 2014
    #1
  2. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Bye bye RMC and R&R, unless somebody buys them and continues to publish. Carstens seems to have been on a downhill slide since Hal Carstens passed away.

    This is a trend that will only continue I fear - the internet groups and blogs (like ours!), the on-line publications, and the excellent railroad historical society publications, some free, are filling in the void. Now the first, MR and Trains, are the last, and I don't think either of them is as good as it used to be either. I dropped Trains some years ago as I found it boring; replaced it with their Classic Trains mag, which I really like.

    Ken
     
    meteor910, Aug 22, 2014
    #2
  3. William Jackson

    William Jackson Bill Jackson

    Yes, on line and ready to run is running away with the hobby. Course their seem to be lots more nice laser buildings and a whole host of landscaping supplies. i just picked up some nice bushes, at Colonial Hobby in Orlando, which is the biggest hobby shop in my area. So their is still, a lot of areas to get into.
     
    William Jackson, Aug 22, 2014
    #3
  4. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    At our last proto layout design meeting in Tulsa, Model Railroad Hobbyist owner & e-publisher Joe Fugate did a presentation of the future of the hobby. He posted charts showing the decline of "paper" magazines, and it was not too surprising that RMC had a small circulation and getting smaller. IMO, after Jim Boyd and Col. Hal died, the company was going to the dogs. RMC is more of a craftsman-type publication (hence the title- duh) than MR.Our local Hastings had stopped carrying RMC several months ago, and just barely had R&R. They did, however, have most of the Kalmbach rail-oriented publications.

    I "subscribe" to MRH, and usually download it to my laptop for future reading. I've also downloaded Mike Confalone's awesome series on his Allagash model railroad. Also, I have several railroad-oriented books downloaded to my Amazon Kindle. Plus, until I did a recent thinning-out, I had a 40-year-old collection of railroad magazines from several publishing companies

    As for cessation of publication, this is straight from their Facebook page, and I quote:

    Carstens Publications has announced that negotiations are taking place with several companies regarding the future publishing of Railfan & Railroad, Railroad Model Craftsman, and Flying Models magazines. All involved ask for your patience at this time.

    Sounds like the patient still displays vital signs- let's not be so hasty to pronounce him dead & ship him off to the morgue.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 22, 2014
    friscobob, Aug 22, 2014
    #4
  5. klrwhizkid

    klrwhizkid Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Rumors are that Kevin Eudaly, of White River Publications may attempt to pick up RMC and one other former Carstens publication and have an independent publisher do RMC for him. It poses some interesting possibilities....
     
    klrwhizkid, Aug 22, 2014
    #5
  6. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Kevin has built a very nice business with White River. Good for him - he/they do a very nice job with their books and journals, and he is a nice guy to boot!

    Ken
     
    meteor910, Aug 22, 2014
    #6
  7. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member


    Forwarded from the Espee list:

    It has been a great run and its lights out at Carstens Pub by 5:00 p.m. I will close out my term of nearly 38 years with the following from Doug Adams, who wrote it around the time I came to RMC: "So Long and Thanks for all the fish."

    Bill Schaumburg
     
    Coonskin, Aug 22, 2014
    #7
  8. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    Model Railroader itself has been getting kinda "thin" lately...

    Tom G.
     
    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 22, 2014
    #8
  9. paul slavens

    paul slavens Member

    Yeah it seems like its a sign of the times, and its all magazines, not just train and model related. I cancelled my subscription to Chevy High Performance because the issues were getting so thin. I do still get MR and Classic Toy Trains but they are getting really thin.
     
    paul slavens, Aug 22, 2014
    #9
  10. nvrr49

    nvrr49 Member

    About 7 years ago I had every MR from the '60's on, and many before that. Stopped the subscription and sold them all ahead of the digital craze. Almost the same for RMC. I have not subscribed to either in that seven years. I am on ten forums and belong to twenty or more groups, I just don't have time or space for paper magazines.
     
    nvrr49, Aug 22, 2014
    #10
  11. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    Sign of the times or not, digital or print, there is at least ONE good model railroading magazine "out there." I've been a subscriber to N Scale Railroading since it's beginnings (They just put out a 14th Anniversary issue) and it seems to be getting better all the time. I especially appreciate NSRRing since there is only token treatment of N scale by MR and RMC.

    Tom G.
     
    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 22, 2014
    #11
  12. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Well, it's official, the patient is dead:

    It is with regret that Carstens Publicatons, Inc. will be closing permanently at close of business on Friday, August 22, 2014. Carstens Publications, Inc. has been a leading publisher of leading hobby magazines for over 50 years. Unfortunately the current economic climate has placed us in this position. Discussion is continuing with several parties who expressed desire to take on the continuance of the magazines. At this point there is still hope that all three titles will remain in existence. But I can offer no guarantees. We thank you for your patronage over the years, and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
    --Henry R. Carstens, President
    Carstens Publications, Inc.

    The hope of RMC and R&R being picked up by someone else may come to fruition, but for now the fires have been dumped and the boiler is cold at Carstens Publications. Sad day for the model railroading and railfanning communities.
     
    friscobob, Aug 22, 2014
    #12
  13. Kevin Blair

    Kevin Blair Member

    Some years ago I culled my rather substantial collection of Model Railroaders for interesting articles and deposited the remains on the give-away cart at our local library. They went fast. An equally large collection of Craftsmen were rather lovingly sorted and stored in four inch notebooks on sturdy shelving in my outdoor hobby room. In my mind the 1977 to 1979 issues of RMC were some of the best modeling magazines ever produced.

    Kevin Blair
    Chanute, KS
    http://www.thewaybill.blogspot.com
     
    Kevin Blair, Aug 22, 2014
    #13
  14. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    Agreed, very sad to see something so iconic fall by the wayside.

    During the Koester years, RMC became my favorite model railroading hobby mag and RMC was, frankly, way ahead of MR in regards to new concepts and such.

    In my case, over the past 10 or more years, magazine purchases of any sort have dwindled to almost nothing. Once read, there they are: In the way and cumbersome. True, it's nice to be able to take a magazine to the throne room to pass some time as one passes other things... but the internet has so much information available and nigh instant communication, that it has essentially replaced my magazine reading. Railroad books, on the other hand, are a different story. I love finding, obtaining, and keeping a good railroad book. Once read, browsed, studied, then shelved, I find I return to the same book over time and never tire of them.

    Ah well, RMC had a great run... hope the principles involved either have the ability to retire or can find equal or better employment.
     
    Coonskin, Aug 23, 2014
    #14
  15. neuefruhling

    neuefruhling Member

    A few years ago I was lucky enough to purchase the 12 issues of MRC from 1982 at the Greater St. Louis book fair. Even though they are almost as old as I am, the how to stuff is still useful to me.

    Maybe I'm odd but I do so much prefer reading paper than a computer screen. Also, I often pick up a decades old Trains, OGR, or MRC off the self and read it again.

    Nathan
     
    neuefruhling, Aug 29, 2014
    #15
  16. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 30, 2014
    #16
  17. Jim James

    Jim James Staff Member Staff Member

    I'm glad. I hated to think that it was going to be gone forever.
     
    Jim James, Aug 30, 2014
    #17
  18. meteor910

    meteor910 2009 Engineer of the Year Staff Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Wow! I really admire what Kevin and his people have done with White River. They do excellent work and I wish them much success in the Carstens investment.

    Ken
     
    meteor910, Aug 31, 2014
    #18
  19. Bradley A. Scott

    Bradley A. Scott Member

    With any luck, White River and the next-generation version of R&R and RMC will give some attention on Missouri railroads in the same way that Kalmbach gives attention to the railroads of its locale in Wisconsin.

    Bradley A. Scott
     
    Bradley A. Scott, Aug 31, 2014
    #19
  20. TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020)

    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020) Passed Away July 15, 2020 Frisco.org Supporter

    I'm just glad somebody​ bought Carstens, I just subscribed to RMC in May and it was like pulling a tooth just to get one (The June) issue! I'm tired of financing defunct entities (like the Frisco Museum, Rock Island Tech. Society and Oddballs decals, etc.).

    Tom G.
     
    TAG1014 (Tom Galbraith RIP 7/15/2020), Aug 31, 2014
    #20
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