What should I do with my old Railway Modellers

[hayfield]

I guess like a lot of others I have hundreds of Railway Modellers , some Model Railway Constructors and a couple of other model mags. I rarely read them, they have no resale value BUT they can be a source of valuable information. Mostly plans

 

Now do I just go down the recycling centre

Have a stand at a swap meet or show

 

Cut out and save the plans

Do I go for certain articles, construction techniques etc 

 

I am leaning to the latter of keeping a plan database. I have books on the GWR locos, coaches and wagons covering most prototypes, also a good book on SR locos and LMS & LNER carriages, but after that not much else

 

If I do this then do I need every plan?, certainly keep plans of what I have to build (or want to build) . Then perhaps sell groups of them in regional collections. I could even scan Items in case I need them in future

 

When we move these can go, in fact other than the newer ones I don't want them. But the potential resource (which I do use) I am loathed to loose

 

So what have you done with yours !!

 

Or what do you think I should do with them

[Tim V]

I have kept my old magazines - in magazine racks. They date back mainly to the early 60s, though I have quite a few from the 50s.

 

Chuck them away - you'll never get them back. When I re-read them all, I found where certain ideas came from that on the face of it were givens. Useful to know where things come from - it gives them weight/gravitas, or maybe they can be re-examined.

[hayfield]

Tim

 

Thanks, but I am not a book person. I don't go back and read them, but I do when necessary go and find the odd plan, including buildings. They are not coming with me as I rather have a shelf of stock rather than mags. And I have 2 very long shelves of RM's & MRC's

 

Paul

 

Yes I was thinking along the same theme, plastic sleeves in ring binders. Where do I stop though and do I keep everything ?

[teaky]

My suggestion: scan what you definitely want to keep, make a note of articles that may or may not be of interest (so you can find the RM issue again in future, if necessary), take the rest to a (railway) charity for them to sell.

 

I've given a number of magazines to the Severn Valley Railway for example.  Seems better than recycling even if they only make a few quid.

[teaky]

Or the Ffestiniog perhaps?

[Kenton]

I used to throw them away - all those years collected from about 1960 up to 1990 (driven under a whip by her indoors to free up some space and have one of those annual "let's throw everything out and buy something new" maniacal fits.)

 

Regrettably listened to and shared in the crime.

 

Now I have a cull of the advertising and review pages - which gives an impression of throwing something out without actually a loss of the really important bits. I keep the layouts and important prototype information pages.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Kenton

[colin penfold]

I have been trying scanning my mags. I cut them into individual sheets with a scalpel, remove the adverts and any pages I know I will never need and then scan the remainder. I save them as the publication month and year and a prefix code for each publication name (e.g. RM201404 for Railway Modeller April 2014) NB I use a text enabled PDF format - this enables a word search on the saved documents. A basic PDF saves pages as single images so searching wouldn't be available. It's a slow process helped by a scanner with auto document feeder, and hindered by the poor quality paper used by Model Rail, and the weird paper format chosen by Railway Modeller which is significantly wider than A4.

[Steamport Southport]

No resale value? Is that why people pay £6 a copy on well known auction sites?

 

Seriously take them to a heritage railway or even to a charity shop rather than binning or slinging them in a recycling bin. I work for a charity and even though they might not get sold in the shop then at least the charity gets paid for them to go elsewhere by weight.

[Stubby47]

Why not donate a few copies to school libraries or local old folks homes ?

[gordon s]

Phoned the local MRC and they took the whole lot.  After all, there is little you can't get via the web these days.  One mention on RMWeb and someone will provide the info for you.  

 

Liberate the space and get rid of them all…:-)

[mezzoman253]

I've 10 or so storage boxes full of mag's RM, MR, plus a good helping of BRM, Hornby, etc. They need a good home too. I tried the local club but nothing has yet has happened, so i'll itemise them and put them on the classifieds on here. 

 

Lots of useful info', but just taking up too much room in the railway room.

 

Rob

[bike2steam]

In the late 1980's I used to run the Swanage Railway promotional/sales stand at model shows, open days etc. There was an endless procession of well meaning people donating old railway/model railway magazines making out they were doing you a favour, but in reality they needed the space. After a while it had to be stopped, as they were a very slow sellers even at 10p a copy, but always welcomed copies of 'Steam Days', or 'Steam World', you just couldn't get enough of those. Funnily enough we have the same problem at the Blandford Museum now.  It pays to give s/h Railway Modellers away at the end of a show rather than waste time packing them up, and taking them back to base again !!

[Kenton]

 

It pays to give s/h railway modellers away at the end of a show rather than waste time packing them up, and taking them back to base again !!

That's one way of clearing the hall of visitors and saves on transporting them back to their care homes.

[mezzoman253]

In the late 1980's I used to run the Swanage Railway promotional/sales stand at model shows, open days etc. There was an endless procession of well meaning people donating old railway/model railway magazines making out they were doing you a favour, but in reality they needed the space. After a while it had to be stopped, as they were a very slow sellers even at 10p a copy, but always welcomed copies of 'Steam Days', or 'Steam World', you just couldn't get enough of those. Funnily enough we have the same problem at the Blandford Museum now.  It pays to give s/h Railway Modellers away at the end of a show rather than waste time packing them up, and taking them back to base again !!

Ok if that's the case, and I don't think it is in all clubs/cases, then I'll put mine out for re-cycling, maybe the dustman is a modeller. 

 

Rob

[The Stationmaster]

 

Liberate the space and get rid of them all…:-)

If I do that I reckon the house will rise about 6 inches

[hayfield]

Thanks for those suggestions, Ebay is full of RM's without any bids at all. If I were to keep them intact I guess selling them at a local show in bundles of a year at a time for a tenner would work.

 

Scanning might be an option, but I am not interested in keeping the whole mags. 

 

I will save a couple of years worth of very early copies as I am interested in Vintage modelling. also perhaps the last 5 years, just for the reviews and adds. Then I will cut out the plans and any building articles that take my fancy. Scanning them may be an option but will need to to brush up on how best to save them (files). Hard copies look favourite at the moment.

 

One thing I have noticed there are those on Ebay who will buy plans, so where I have them already/duplicates/ what does not interest me may be saleable.  

 

If anyone wants a specific one or two PM me and perhaps we can arrange a deal/swap etc

 

Thanks again

[PhilJ W]

Why not just scan the articles you want to keep and then download them onto a CD. There should be no copyright problems if they are for personal use only.

Edited July 20, 2014 by PhilJ W

[hayfield]

Phil

 

I have come to distrust saving items to disc/hard drive.

 

I worked for a company who invested millions in software to store clients information and which could be updated and reused (paperless office). It did actually work very well but was dropped later in favour of paper.

 

Likewise we used both Zip drives and CD's for backup. Needless to say the software to read this was discontinued.

 

I had windows XP using the standard Microsoft email system, needless to say once windows 7 arrived with Windows Live Mail the conversion failed to transfer all of the emails.

 

I still have some paper client files pre-dating the paperless system, and some of the emails I lost still on paper.

 

And I have not mentioned VHS tapes/ music cassettes etc

 

Sorry paper still rules for somethings

[rob D2]

I immediately cut out and staple interesting articles, the rest straight to recycling

[locomad]

I keep my mags in "Mag boxes" old washing powder boxes seem to be idea, however have noticed that while you can get couple of years worth of copies of mags from the 70's in one box, your luckly to get even one years worth in one cause modern mags are so thick.

 

What |I do is cut out all the adverts but leave just one month per year intact cause even the ad's are interesting to read back in years time

[14Steve14]

On the old stapled style magazines I used to remove the advert pages and keep the article pages in an old binder. Its not so easy to take the new style mags apart now, I now scan any pages I feel I may need again, and box them up. I put a whole box full on eBay the other month and sold for 25 quid collection only. Buyer came and took the lot away, I even got requests for missing mags from others copies and collections. Those that don't sell I ask the local model railway clubs whether they could do with them. Failing that I just recycle them.

[Sweeps]

Give 'em to dentist and doctors waiting rooms, they usually only have women's magazines anyway. Finding a second hand copy of Railway Modeller many many years ago made me realise you could move from train set to model railway and it was still okay to keep and 'play' with your trains as an adult.

['CHARD]

What should I do with my old railway modellers?

 

Hire a people-mover and take them out for a nice ride and a cream tea.

[locomad]

Phoned the local MRC and they took the whole lot.  After all, there is little you can't get via the web these days.  One mention on RMWeb and someone will provide the info for you.  

 

Liberate the space and get rid of them all…:-)

 

I'am a member of a local club, and we have quite a large library full of books & mags members have donated, one advantage of been a member is you can access borrow mags & books without the hassle of having to store them at home.

 

 

[APOLLO]

Like most I also have far too many magazines, all kept in A4 photo copier paper boxes in the loft and garage, and slowly being moved to the garage to lighten the loft !!

 

I bought a boatload of Model Railroader mags (American) for next to nothing a while ago, indeed the guy at the bookshop was glad to be relieved of them, complete years too, 1950 to 1975 bar a few issues (all loose though), and I must say they are very interesting to read (I model O gauge N American also) - I won't be chucking those out - but the (worsening) problem remains. We built a new conservatory last year, and now I increasingly find myself in there with a box of mags and a mug or three of tea !!. One box at a time though the Mrs says !!.

 

Now I know there worth nowt, but new mags at over £4 a throw are nowadays increasingly out of it - (except for "Steam Days" - how could anyone throw THOSE out ?!!), so I like to grab a box of old uns to go through quite often.

 

SO - my intention this winter is to consolidate my collection down into the garage where I can get at them easily. I'm chucking nowt away, as sod's law will decree the ones you chuck will be the ones you need in future.

 

Brit15