N Scale Insight

[conrail98]

And their guidelines pretty much spell out 2/3 of the "article" will be pictures with the other 1/3 text,

Phil

[Puddington]

Pudd, if you haven't already, read MR's author's guide on photo submission.  Unleass it's changed from a few years ago, it was very involved to the point of being demotivational.  I'll look again, but at last glance it was intimidating to say the least.  More than just megapixels; it involved RGB calibration shots, etc.

Oh no; I've read it (I'm in the graphics industry so I actually understand it)...I agree it's over the top with regard to the colour calibration requirements (most people don't have a clue about ICC profiling, colour calibration or any of the other technical aspects of photography - ok; David is the exception.... ;D) It appears they think they are a high fashion magazine.....LOL -  but my point is that the best technical photography will not save an average image due to composition, lighting or, dare I say it, subject.

[Mark5]

Pud,

I've never considered MR to be a "high brow" mag.

Mark

[Puddington]

Pud,

I've never considered MR to be a "high brow" mag.

Mark

Just "high priced"....? 

Tee Hee...............

[Rossford Yard]

Friends of mine with fabulous, MR worthy layouts have run afoul of their photography requirements.  Most have been rejected as not being "low level close ups" but rather overhead views.

NS and NSR have lighter requirements in the photo dept., no doubt.

[lock4244]

This is why MR is irrelevant, IMO.

http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23303.0
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,23281.0.html

You don't get this type of help from MR, but you do here, and it's almost instant. All the help, advice, assistance, and a ton of inspiration on The Railwire.

Asshats 1
MR 0

[conrail98]

This is why MR is irrelevant, IMO.

http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23303.0
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,23281.0.html

You don't get this type of help from MR, but you do here, and it's almost instant. All the help, advice, assistance, and a ton of inspiration on The Railwire.

Asshats 1
MR 0

I wouldn't expect that in the monthly but possibly in their "How-to" series or other books on specific subjects. I will say their Step-by-Step series lately has been pretty good. This month, making conifers out of wooden dowels, air filters, and coarse turf. As for the article in question, it's what I would expect an intro one to a bi-monthly column would be. A couple of insights about increasing his minimum radius so more modern equipment looks good on it and recycling his 3rd layout,

Phil

[Rossford Yard]

This is why MR is irrelevant, IMO.

http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=23303.0
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,23281.0.html

You don't get this type of help from MR, but you do here, and it's almost instant. All the help, advice, assistance, and a ton of inspiration on The Railwire.

Asshats 1
MR 0

While true, it also makes NS and NSR even less relevant as bimonthly magazines.

[lock4244]

Stopped buying model mags along time ago... proto ones, too (except CP Tracks, CN Lines Sig, and the odd Diesl Era). More money for books, which I love.

[MichaelWinicki]

While true, it also makes NS and NSR even less relevant as bimonthly magazines.

There's some merit to your post RY.

Many of the NS and NSR mags, I don't even save. 

Here's what I think any model railroad based mag can be good at:

- Layout overviews.  Some of the folks that blog or a dedicated website for their layouts, i.e. Lee and Dave V., can provide for decent layout overview.   But within the context of a forum... Not so much.

- Hypothetical track-plans/railroads you can model.  Dave S. provides some interesting trackplans here at RW, but you typically don't have the nuts & bolts along with like they do with a MR published plan.  I enjoy the trackplans more so than any other part of the magazine.

- Indepth "how-to's"  Again on forums we'll get some tips but for the most part folks don't show how to do something step by step.  The magazines are still better at this sort of thing.

-Product reviews.   Most don't have the time nor the interest to do a review like they do in MR.

[wm3798]

I'll dispute the product review issue...  I think we get far more information that is far more useful in a far more timely manner via the innerwebs than we will ever get from a mag.  First off, with the pre-order/limited run situation, the magazine isn't getting the model much sooner than we the People are, then they have to go through triage to determine whether it's important enough to include in the 4 pages dedicated to reviews.  By the time the ink splashes on the paper, the model's been on the street for the better part of two months, and if it's a really good one, you can't find one if you had to.

So we can look up just about any product and get some sort of feedback, or we can wait for Dana Kawala (sp?) to tell us how many drawbar ounces he can come up with.

The web wins this category walking away.
Lee

[pnolan48]

I've never thought MR standards were excessive or, today, that hard to meet in technical areas, if you are serious about publishing there.

But then I've been in the printing industry since age 17, and been publishing articles since age 19, so I know the terms. You know, SWOP and CMYK can be as intimidating acronyms as BNSF or KCS to those outside the industry.

Today's cameras and software make meeting MR standards moderately reasonable, but you do have to be serious about publishing there.

By luck, I published one photo in National Geographic, along with about 100,000 other photographers, if you look at their archives. It's really not that big a deal if you submit your best work to magazines.

As I said before, MR is a serious magazine, with serious requirements, and 25X the circulation of specialty magazines.

I just wonder, just for fun, how we would complain about the standards of The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Esquire, or other literary magazines. Just for fun--?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I don't know. I like Jim Kellys work. Him and John Coots layouts got me into N scale. Say what you will about so-Cal layouts, but his U33C conversion in 1987 was a great first step into the art of kitbashing.

Maybe that's what MR wants to do. Encourage people to try doing more in N scale by giving them the building blocks they need. Remember that DRGW MKM ML4000 article in N Scale Railroading? Great article on an interesting prototype. But what kind of beginner is going to build a shell like that? How about me C30-7A? Not many. JK's U33C article started my kitbashing learning curve. I needed to learn how to lob a radiator off before I learned how to move body panels around.

A bit low brow for us? You bet, but it works great for those N-Trakers out there that don't know the difference between an SW7 and SW1500. As long as it has pretty pictures, I'll be reading too.

[MichaelWinicki]

I'll dispute the product review issue...  I think we get far more information that is far more useful in a far more timely manner via the innerwebs than we will ever get from a mag.  First off, with the pre-order/limited run situation, the magazine isn't getting the model much sooner than we the People are, then they have to go through triage to determine whether it's important enough to include in the 4 pages dedicated to reviews.  By the time the ink splashes on the paper, the model's been on the street for the better part of two months, and if it's a really good one, you can't find one if you had to.

So we can look up just about any product and get some sort of feedback, or we can wait for Dana Kawala (sp?) to tell us how many drawbar ounces he can come up with.

The web wins this category walking away.
Lee

Yeah, we get feedback, but many times within the context of a forum you get opinions that are all-over the map and not often in agreement.  Take the Bachmann GP7's.  I think they're good looking and good running loco's– at a fair price, but it took about five minutes before someone was bashing them for having a 3-pole motor and said they were over-priced.

[Dave V]

I don't doubt that MR's standards are commensurate with a magazine of their market size and genre.  I'm merely indicating that they're higher than I feel prepared to meet at the current time.