Sep/Oct N Scale Railroading

I just received my copy of the Sep/Oct issue of N scale railroading. Good to see some familiar names. Great job by Bill Denton on the SDL39. Nice to see more of Tony's work in print.

There is a typo on page ten in the New Arrivals section. The contact information for the F45 kit should read southernalbertarail.com

 

I have pretty much given up on Hundman's N Scale mag, but I just LOVE NSR. They consistently have more photos than Model Railroader when they do a layout spread, like the Dudley Ross C&O layout. I keep hoping that Kirk will go to a monthly format in the near future.

 

I got mine too. Lots of great stuff. I notice NSR is getting thicker. A little more advertising maybe but it means the hobby is growing.

 

I too am just a little piqued at Hundman Publishing, not only for N-Scale magazine but for CTC Board/Railroads Illustrated also. But don't look for either N-Scale or N-Scale Railroading to go monthly any time soon; in fact, when I questioned Hundman at San Jose in 2000 about this very issue he told me that his circulation would have to almost triple to even get him to consider it. Neither magazine, you will admit, fire with great muzzle velocity and both are probably saturated at their current level of sales. It takes a lot of money to publish, magazines or otherwise, and neither N-Scale or N-Scale Railroading garnish the revenue to justify the expense. If you don't believe me look inside; how many Fortune 500 companies' ads do you see between the covers?

I'm not trying to be negative here; I too would like to see a monthly N-Scale publication but I don't expect it with the puny number of N-Scale modelers and, according to figures published a few years ago - it may have been back when Custer was a cadet, I'm not sure just how far back - in RMC the results of one of their polls indicated that N-Scalers only spend, on the average, 65% of what their HO brothers spend and only account for approximately 23% of the numbers. Unfortunately, that ain't a lot of buying power and is not going to generate humongous quantity of advertising revenues.

 

Jay,

I have heard from some dealers that N Scalers actually outspend HO guys, probably because they need proportionally more rolling stock for an equal SF layout. If HO guys spend more, it may be because of brass and other high dollar offerings we don't have yet. I do think the 23% is accurate for N scalers, which is only a third or so of the HO community, but growing thanks to reliability.

Back to your main point, when I first saw NSR on a dealers shelf a few years back, my first reaction was that there couldn't be room for two N scale only mags. And, I was impressed with the overall quality and more generalistic approach of NSR. I figured N Scale was doomed at some point at that very moment, and now think its dying a long slow death due to a "better mousetrap."

I always kind of figured they would merge, like Railfan and Railroad Magazines many years ago to form a stronger magazine. I don't know that Hundman would get much money out of it, but he could save some face, and the magazine could perhaps go monthly and blend the best of both approaches.

 

I love NSR! I wish it were monthly but I understand why its not. As far as the spending in HO vs N, it may be true overall but my circle of train
buds includes only 1 in HO and 7 Nscalers. My lhs stocks way more HO
and says N does not sell but my friends and I walk away frustrated because we have to drive 120 miles one way or do mail order. I think if
my lhs stocked more N it the percentage gap would close.
Jeff

 

Hey,
Kirk does a great job,issue after issue :thumbs_up: . I hope he goes monthly someday.I love to see the job he'd do if he featured the N scale layout that was in the new MR. I also get a charge out of seeing TB members in NSR.