Another one bites the dust?

[Hauk]

Found this on Carsten Publisings FB-page:

"It is with regret that Carstens Publicatons, Inc. will be closing permanently at close of business on Friday, August 22, 2014. Carstens Publications, Inc. has been a leading publisher of leading hobby magazines for over 50 years. Unfortunately the current economic climate has placed us in this position. Discussion is continuing with several parties who expressed desire to take on the continuance of the magazines. At this point there is still hope that all three titles will remain in existence. But I can offer no guarantees. We thank you for your patronage over the years, and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

--Henry R. Carstens, President
Carstens Publications, Inc."

I can not say that this bothers me much, general model railroading magazines has since long stopped beeing of any use or inspiration.

[finescalerr]

I cannot understand why Carstens would have to shut down unless its owner, Henry Carstens, mismanaged the company. From what I could see RMC's content and advertising have remained very consistent over the decades.

Whatever the reason for Carstens' demise, it is yet another indicator the model railroad hobby (and industry) continue to erode and shrink. When the second largest American publisher goes down, even if the reason really were poor management, it's too important a symptom to overlook. Still, no doubt most people would again tell me I'm just "negative" and "pessimistic". I suppose the Jews who left Germany in the early and mid 1930s were similarly negative and pessimistic.

I think I pulled out at the right time. The Carstens announcement is not good news to anybody (except Kalmbach).

Russ

[Chuck Doan]

I have seen a long note from Chris Lane detailing cash flow issues and the loss of their printer. Who knows how it got there, but it is sad to lose another model rr icon.

[Stoker]

A couple years back when I got interested in the MRR hobby again after a ~30 year hiatus I was in a hobby shop and picked up copies of both Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman. The thing that jumped out at me as I thumbed through them was that RMC was exactly the same quality as it was 30+ years ago in the heyday of MRRing, chock full of well written articles and how to's complete with nice line drawings, etc. and that MR had devolved into nothing more than a glorified advertising rag with little to no content of utility in the slightest. The $6 for RMC seemed like a bargain and MR seemed like I had been conned into paying $6 for a commercial, which mostly pushed things I had no interest in, like "operations". Malcom Furlow nailed it decades ago when he said "The Ops guys are going to kill this hobby". The cover layout in that MR rag was featuring a "Model Railroader" who freely admitted that he did not do a single thing on the layout, but that it was built by a team of professionals he had hired, so that he could perform "operations". Good for him, I am glad he has enough money to pay for a top notch college education to blow on having someone create a layout for him to play railroad employee on. The mentality of featuring him as the center of the magazine is completely absurd though. It is like some jerk buying a new Ferrari and then joining a hotrodder club and bragging about how great of a mechanic he is compared to all those dumb schmucks who took rusty old carcasses out of the junkyard and made them into speed demons with skill, sweat, and busted knuckles.

Since then I have bought a few more RMC's, but I will never bother with MR again. Hopefully someone scoops up these great Carsten's magazines and keeps at least one beacon of light shining for guys who like to actually create things instead of those that are interested in bragging about how much money they have wrapped up in their layout, and how much "fun" it is to invite a bunch of guys over to wear silly engineer hats and play railroad employee.

Looking forward, whoever does pick up RMC will hopefully have the sense to create an online presence, as obviously this is required these days. I also hope they don't try to make it into another MR or MRH site that is dominated by a bunch of Ops bullies, but is instead actually focused on the craftsmanship aspect of the hobby. As far as this helping Kalmbach, I am not so sure about that. There has been a distinct divide growing between the Railroad Modelers and the Operations crowds for some time now, with the core readership of RMC being craftsman oriented so I don't see a big surge of guys suddenly subscribing to MR. There is no doubt that overall the MRR hobby is disappearing, BUT, it seems that right now there is an upsurge of interest. Unfortunately, I am afraid this is only a "dead cat bounce" as guys who were in the hobby in their youth in the 60s and 70s are re-entering it now that they are retiring. The sad news is that there are basically no kids entering the hobby, which means it will die out. There simply isn't any substantial interest in modeling in general among today's kids, and most likely the only thing they are exposed to about railroading is Thomas The Train. Once a kid starts wearing big boy pants there is no way in heck that they would be caught dead associating themselves with TT, and since TT is the public image of model railroading these days they will most likely not ever pick the hobby up.

[finescalerr]

To clarify: Kalmbach could benefit in two ways. The most important is advertising. Kalmbach's modus operandi is to charge so much for ad space that its advertisers have very little budget remaining for other publications. With that in mind it will be much more difficult for an unproven new RMC owner to obtain ads ... unless that new owner is Kalmbach. The second benefit to Kalmbach is that they might be that new owner; Carstens reportedly has offered to sell Kalmbach his publications.

A note about an online presence: It is of minimal value unless, as in the case of Model Railroad Hobbyist, the publisher gives away digital magazines and earns all its income from advertising.

Little in the hobby business is as straightforward as you might think. Few hobbyists (and even people in the industry) have a realistic grasp of what is happening and where things are headed.

Russ

[mabloodhound]

Here's Chris Lanes latest comment:
"My fellow On30 modelers,

As many of you are aware, Carstens Publications closed its doors Friday @ 5PM est. The business climate was such that the long time publisher of Railroad Model Craftsman, Railfan & Railroad, Flying Models, The On30 Annual, HOn3 Annual and numerous hobby books could not continue.

The Carstens family is engaged in active negotiations with several firms whose intent is to acquire select assets and fulfill the remaining subscriptions. So if you are a subscriber to any of those publications, and I know many of you are; you are not getting screwed. You will get what you paid for in time, and RMC, Railfan and likely Flying Models will continue in some form into the future.

Which brings me to the On30 & HOn3 Annuals. While the details of how they move forward are dependent on which firm acquires the assets, I can assure you that both publications WILL continue. I started working on the On30 Annual in 2005 with the intent to grow, promote and serve the On30 community and I'm not done: Not by a long shot!

I am grateful for the almost 8 years I spent at Carstens and all the friends I made while working with them. And while I appreciate all the Carstens did for the Annuals and for me personally, those with a sense of history know that this isn't the first horse to be shot out from under me. As any westerner will tell you, you grab your saddle and bedroll and jog over to a new horse, and that is what I am doing. Just as soon as I am saddled up and riding, I'll let everyone know!

Thanks for all your support over the years and I look forward to serving you for many years to come.

All the best,

Chris Lane - Editor On30 Annual"

[Lawton Maner]

It would have been nice if they had given their subscribers a heads up prior to going tits up.

[finescalerr]

Although he has information the rest of us lack, remember that Chris is above all a salesman. I hope things work out for the Carstens crew but, even if they do, I would expect serious changes in the hobby landscape within the next ten years.

Just now the phrase, "drowning man clutching at straws" popped into my head as I thought about hobby addicts and their pushers.

Russ

[BKLN]

I am so tired of hearing the whining about the demise of model railroading. All I see, is a shift! The part of model railroading that's dying is the part that nobody needs anyway.

[finescalerr]

I hope nothing I wrote would suggest I think model railroading is headed for the tomb. I do think it will be a much smaller hobby in the future with more hobbyists helping one another rather than relying on industry. I expect a consolidation of, and also fewer, manufacturers, much as Walthers absorbed Life-Like/Proto2000 and Bachmann's owner, Kader, bought out its main Chinese competitor, Sandekan (or however you spell it).

Along with the above I would expect smaller runs of higher quality products, an overall shift from larger to smaller layouts, and perhaps more emphasis on shelf size switching dioramas. Specifically the British concept of scenicked switching areas adjacent to fiddle yards possibly could gain more popularity here.

As the older guys phase out I would expect online periodicals to outnumber paper but such big publishers as Kalmbach may be able to support paper. Currently the best overall mainstream publication is the free online Model Railroad Hobbyist. It blows away MR and what used to be RMC.

Where I see the greatest possibility of damage is large scale and narrow gauge. Maybe also 3-rail and other toy train interests. The guys most interested in those segments tend to be, on average, at least ten years older than the typical HO/N standard gauger.

Finally, I doubt fine modeling (in any field) will experience much negative impact over the years. It is different from buying and running trains and always should attract craftsmen and artists.

If this website still has members a decade from now, I'll be fascinated to see whether my forecast has stood up. (I think most of it will.)

Russ

[nemmrrc]

I'm hoping the current advances in consumer-grade 3D printers will influence the young crowd to make models.

Jaime

[BKLN]

With the loss of some of the big "commercial" players, the hobby will go back to the spirit of the early years of model railroading. Only that the technologies available are so much more sophisticated. Scratchbuilding by means of laser cutting, 3D-printing, etching and all this other good stuff. The tools available to us have never been better!

[Lawton Maner]

It seems that RMC and Railfan have been sold to White River Productions.  They print historical society newsletters and a couple of specialty RR mags.  We'll see.