Railway Modeller: 6-year experiment ends

[Guest teacupteacup]

I stopped buying magazines years ago, I used to always buy RM, then Model Rail when it became a separate publication, then Hornby when it came out.  Ive never really liked BRM.  After a few issues of Hornby I stopped buying any mags regularly as I found them to be regurgitating the same articles, with less and less interesting articles, and the standard of photography got worse with each issue, with only a few exceptions. 

 

Apart from RM.  Its always been a consistently well presented, interesting and informative publication and long may it continue

[coachmann]

Chatting with Roy Dock in the GEM factory, he once described RM as the Amateur Photographer of the model railway world because it carried all the advertising. I used to buy the Xmas edition every year even in the wilderness years when I did no modelling for myself.

Edited July 13, 2018 by coachmann

[Oldddudders]

Chatting with Roy Dock in the GEM factory, he described RM as the Amateur Photographer of the model railway world because it carried all the advertising. I used to buy the Xmas edition every year even in the wilderness years when I did no modelling for myself.

A very fair comparison then. But while RM continues to thrive in a more competitive environment, AP is a mere shadow of the thick, prosperous weekly of 40 years ago.

[coachmann]

A very fair comparison then. But while RM continues to thrive in a more competitive environment, AP is a mere shadow of the thick, prosperous weekly of 40 years ago.

This doesn't surprise me today.  I haven't bought an AP since going digital around the turn of the present Century and I think I have only popped into our local camera shop twice since that time.

[andyman7]

... But, if they're smoking a pipe, how can they possibly be described as "average enthusiasts"?

OK, in a concession to modern times I will accept vaping

[chris bales]

Remember back in the day Monty Wells on detailing diesel locomotives. Before they had all the bits you can buy now,

[sandwich station]

I've known since the 1960's that RM was part of Peco. Didn't think it was ever a secret.

[westerner]

Personally I prefer the much simpler and cleaner look of RM in the early 1970s.

 

 

They looked in a way like MRJ does now. I'm not that keen on over bright colours on  the cover which rather shouts at you and also on some of the layout photography. this applies to the other mags as well as RM

Edited July 27, 2018 by westerner

[Budgie]

Personally I prefer the much simpler and cleaner look of RM in the early 1970s.

I prefer the price of the RM in the early 1970s.

[Kubes]

Actually a bit more than a pint of beer if my memory serves me well!

[westerner]

I think in 1970 a pint was between 2/6 (12 1/2p) and 3/- (15p), so the mags gone up a fraction more than a pint, but there is a lot more in it 31 pages in Jan 1970 to 88 pages in the last issue That's not counting the adverts.

[south_tyne]

But Mars bars are smaller now.......

 

Cheers,

Mick

But the filling is less substantial than in the past whether the same is true for RM is for debate...

[Lacathedrale]

My biggest regret is chucking a 3' high pile of 70's and 80's RM and CM magazines I got from the bootfair for 10p each or suchlike as a kid (infact, bizarrely there was always a guy with a huge model railway selection on trestle tables - certainly incongruous in a multi-storey carpark in central Lewisham) -- I found it then as now very very hard to stomach the advertisements. A third (or it seems!) of listings of RTR locomotives at (mostly) RRP over and over and over. Enough to drive one to drink!

 

I have a subsription to BRM but only because the video content is so good - it feels to me like all the magazines are stuck in a time warp, but BRM is the most modern of the lot.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Lacathedrale

[kevinlms]

My biggest regret is chucking a 3' high pile of 70's and 80's RM and CM magazines I got from the bootfair for 10p each or suchlike as a kid (infact, bizarrely there was always a guy with a huge model railway selection on trestle tables - certainly incongruous in a multi-storey carpark in central Lewisham) -- I found it then as now very very hard to stomach the advertisements. A third (or it seems!) of listings of RTR locomotives at (mostly) RRP over and over and over. Enough to drive one to drink!

 

I have a subsription to BRM but only because the video content is so good - it feels to me like all the magazines are stuck in a time warp, but BRM is the most modern of the lot.

Remember the Railway Modeller (and presumably the CM), tried to hold back the internet and refused advertisers to list a website? This was around 1999 and into the early 2000s where email addresses were OK, but not websites.

 

Advertisers gradually undermined the rule, by 

1/ stating that a website was available - the email address made it easy to find!

2/ Underlining it or having spaces, so Peco's spell check had trouble picking it up!

 

Eventually they gave up and said it was OK and charged extra IIRC. No idea if that rule still applies.

 

The advertising must contribute significantly to Peco's revenue and presumably much of the profit, must go to improving the Peco range, especially the track variations, of which there has been plenty in the last 20 years or so. Almost all made in the UK, so not all bad.

[martin_wynne]

Remember the Railway Modeller (and presumably the CM), tried to hold back the internet and refused advertisers to list a website? This was around 1999 and into the early 2000s where email addresses were OK, but not websites.

 

Their actual policy was not against web sites, but against advertising any hobby activity other than model railways. As far as I know that still applies -- it makes obvious sense that disposable income diverted into other hobbies is not then available to the model railway trade.

 

At the time "home computers" was seen as a hobby in its own right. And before smartphones and social media it was.

 

Martin.

[Budgie]

I thought their non-website policy was ended after one advertiser threatened to stop advertising in the Modeller, thus costing them a lot of money.

[DCB]

I seem to remember back in the 1970s RM competed with Model Railway Constructor and Model Railway News for space on WH Smith's shelves, now there about six competitors.   I think the average modeller of those days was anyone without a lathe, you could barely turn a page without tripping over an ex GPO relay.   I remember the Ortogo railway had solenoid operated rabbits and I'm still waiting for Bachmann to bring out a DCC version...

[Legend]

Yep these were the days . The Model Railway Constructor was my first Model Railway Magazine . Oct 72 I think . Mid Gwent was the railway featured amongst others . Further copies followed in 73 with Millholme , an L&NWR terminus and then a Furness Railway layout that was beautiful in the March MRC.  Then for some reason I switched to Railway Modeller and it just felt more welcoming. Junior Modeller was much more my thing at the time . I always thought RM was for the average modeller whereas  MRC was a bit more high brow.  I only ever bought one Model Railway News , it had a GWR terminus in it , would it have been Fratton?. The layout was also on the Inner back page of that years Hornby catalogue , wehich I think might have been why I bought it . I can't remember now, but for some reason it was the only edition I ever bought!

 

In these days the magazines were laid out on the counter of the local tobacconist. Shelves hadn't been invented yet!

Edited October 2, 2018 by Legend

[Pteremy]

In these days the magazines were laid out on the counter of the local tobacconist. Shelves hadn't been invented yet!

 

Or available in the local model shop.......

[DCB]

In these days the magazines were laid out on the counter of the local tobacconist. Shelves hadn't been invented yet!

 

Or available in the local model shop.......

Not in my local model shop they weren't,  Newmans of Cheltenham.  You had to go down the Promenade to WH Smith or John Menzies to buy a magazine in the early 1970s.

[Legend]

There wasn't a local model shop in Paisley at the time . Really the only one we ever had was the much missed McMillian models , who I think started in 1977.   Hornby was available from toy shops, The Variety Stores or Hughes the Ironmonger . Neither of these had model railway mags . It really was just the newsagent. tobacconist  and the mags were laid out over his counter . Not the easiest to see .   Anyway we digress off into nostalgia.

[Budgie]

Anyway we digress off into nostalgia.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

[ejstubbs]

I haven't bought an AP since going digital around the turn of the present Century and I think I have only popped into our local camera shop twice since that time.

 

I haven't bought an AP since some time in the mid 1980s when I stopped buying SLRs.

 

Do they still have a lavishly illustrated article about some aspect or another of 'glamour' photography every other week?  I'd be surprised if that was the case: I'd have thought that Rule 34 would have destroyed any lingering appeal it might have had in that regard.  (Not for nothing was it nicknamed Amateur Pornographer back in the day.)

[Welchester]

Not in my local model shop they weren't,  Newmans of Cheltenham.  You had to go down the Promenade to WH Smith or John Menzies to buy a magazine in the early 1970s.

 

Ah, Newmans in the Bath Road. How many happy hours were spent there? Now a restaurant, I think.

[dajt]

I think it is interesting they've put Peco on the cover now. I hadn't noticed.

 

I also preferred the simpler covers of the late 60s early 70s. And the cool retro (although not at the time!) scratchbuilding articles.

 

I think RM has kicked up a gear over the last few years. I gave up on it for long stretches of time when there didn't seem to be anything but photos of layouts. I still find layout articles mostly a waste of space (including in MRJ) but MR seem to be increasing the how-to side of things at least some months.

 

archive.org has a few scans of old 60s issues. Not enough sadly, I love that stuff.