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A Problem in the Model Railway Press

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A recent YouTube video by creator New England Industrial Division asked a question I’ve been struggling with for a while. Are you thinking it too? Watch the video, and then read my thoughts below.

This is not just a Model Railroader problem

Just to be clear, I have almost every electronic issue of Model Railroader since 1963. It is, for me, a lifetime of reading material. I am not a Model Railroader hater. I don’t hate any other modelling magazine either, and this is not just a Model Railroader Magazine issue (pun intended). The same problems exist in the publishing industry here in Australia, the UK, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Canada, and anywhere else a model magazine relies on advertising for its revenue.

The magazine business is brutal

The overall magazine business has been shrinking for years. Today, it is under more pressure than ever before.  With higher costs, falling subscriptions, and difficulty finding shelf space in ever fewer retail locations to attract new readers. I have begun to wonder in ten years just how many of the railway modelling mastheads will remain from the herd that is there today.

The state of the world today doesn’t help. Agreements and alliances under threat from rogue leaders. Wars, spiralling governmental debt, civil unrest and personal incomes under more pressure than in the last 100 years. It is wise to remember that it’s less than two years to the 100th anniversary of the great depression. Any magazine powered by advertising is not doing well.

Without these brilliant and dazzling layouts, by highly skilled and talented ‘artists’, no one runs out to buy that extra locomotive (we all have enough locos to fill out a class 1 roster, right?), another boxcar, five of these and three of those, which keep those same advertisers happy. Without happy (cashed up) advertisers, the marketing machine snake that eats itself starts to run out of tail and starts nipping at its own neck.

Then you see the magazine’s actual model railroad content shrink over the months; with it goes readership and revenue. Soon, the writers churning out large layout copy get laid off one by one until the magazine offices go dark.

What’s my take on all of this?

Do I think the advertising-supported magazines have missed the boat on the small layout trend? Absolutely. They do give a token response now and then. We see small layouts appear in one, and if it has been a good year, possibly two issues. But there’s no heart in it.

The calculus of magazine advertising is such that without jaw-dropping, gee-whiz, eye-popping content, the manufacturers and other interested advertisers don’t see enough return on their investment.

There is help at hand

If this is your first time here, take a moment to look at the hundreds of layout designs I have published using the menus above.

Today, even these small layouts can mean a bill of $150 to 500 dollars for timber benchwork. Small is not only the new big. It is often the only option if you are strapped for any of these four items:

  • cash,
  • skills,
  • time, and
  • knowledge.

Of the four, the greatest barrier is time. Because time, unless you are young, controls your ability to acquire enough of the other three to achieve your model railroading goals. Unless you have a trust fund, cash often takes time to accumulate. Skills require time to achieve mastery. Knowledge takes time to find, understand and apply.

In a future post, I’ll share a 6 foot x 1 foot shelf layout baseboard that I found for only $75 AU on Amazon.com.au of all places. I saved time and cash on this one.

There’s another angle that most people don’t think about as a modeller. You already have some skills. If you have been modelling for even a short time, you have a set of modelling tools. Often you’ll have the basic tools to build your model railroad layout, such as:

  • Knives to cut foam, cork and cardboard,
  • Files and sandpaper to smooth and finish.
  • A hobby saw (with an Exacto handle) can be used to cut the pine most often used for framing your layout.
  • A soldering iron? Yep, you’ll need that when you wire up the layout.

So where to from here?

The barriers to entry of the Model Railroader-style version of railroading are higher than they have been since WW2.

But you have options. Many of us are pushing the case for smaller operating layouts. I’ve been at it for more than a quarter of a century. And there are others out there too; you just have to find them. I’ve put some links in the References section at the bottom of the page.

I want to thank  have been thinking about this topic for almost a year now, and your video came along at just the right time. Thanks for sparking this conversation.

Andrew

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