Over on one of the N scale forums there's been a lot of discussion about what's going on with the paper magazines and what that all means for the future of the hobby.

As the publisher of MRH, I track this closely and I have some insight that may help.

For years, the paper magazines have been declining in circulation. Looking at the two leading model railroading magazines, Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman, you can see MR peaked about 1993 and RMC has been steadily dropping since 1980:

Tony Koester answers questions after his Multideck Layouts clinic at the
X2011 West NMRA Convention in Sacramento, CA.

TONY KOESTER on Multi-deck layouts

MRH is at the NMRA Pacific Northwest Regional convention in Seattle right now. One of the better-known modelers from this region is Paul Scoles. We attended his scenery clinic today and it was delightful and informative.

Paul put some paving sand on a piece of pink foam that he had painted a dark green-brown. He used wet water to shape the scene's terrain not unlike how you did sand castles as a kid. Then he soaked it with glue ...

FOR INFO ON RAILS BY THE RIVER 2011, SEE: http://railsbytheriver.com.

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Attending Jeff Hanke's clinic on selectively compressing a prototype scene ... Here's the steps he recommends: - Acquire prototype track plans and photos - Define modeling space, dimensions and operational desires - Collect prototype details - track names, old photos, old railroaders' knowledge/memories - Determine the essence of the scene, the signature elements - Determine haves and wants for the scene - haves are MUSTS - Eliminate everything else - Draw the plan - rework until essence is captured - Build it and compare to model photos

My friend got an iPad this last weekend, and he let me borrow it for an hour. My first impression is - dang, this sucker is fast! Typing on the software-based popup keyboard was easier than I thought it was going to be, and in a short time I was able to type at a pretty good clip with it.

Here's some recent news story summaries that show MRH is riding a coming technology wave ...

In my last blog entry, I posted a cancellation of my September Op session because of a mystery short.

So now that Issue 4 is out the door, I'm back to working on the layout again - and I've solved the mystery short.

I first had to 0-5-0 remove all the trains from staging so I could look for things on the track, make sure I could find all the feeders, etc. Did that - and found several lose parts from railcars laying around (ladders and brakewheels) but nothing that would cause a short since they were all plastic.

If any of my regular OPS crew happens to peruse the MRH web site, the Siskiyou Line op session for September is cancelled.

I'll explain more later ... but please pass this on to the rest of the crew.

Sorry for the late notice - it's a long story ...

I've been building "poor man's jig" turnouts all summer and now I'm going to replace all the commercial turnouts on the "Eugene end" of staging tomorrow.

My poor man's jig turnouts use Central Valley turnout (CVT) ties and some Fast Track filing jigs to make quick work out of building a turnout. I like the CVT ties because they're inexpensive ($6 each) and they have slots for the rails - so you just drop the rails in place and you get a properly gauged turnout.