Joe, I think the magazine needs to have a ballance between articles that appeal to a minority in the hobby and ones that have an appeal to the majority.  Articles on operations can appeal to someone operating a model railroad in any part of the country.  Articles on modeling modern industrial buildings would likewise have a wide appeal.  Modeling industries from earlier times would also have a wide appeal.  Until the last few years, the industrial buildings available to modelers were typically the models that Bachmann, Atlas, LifeLike, or Model Power offered and as one guy on another board frequently mentions, they are so small that they look like they could be serviced by one truck load a week, not by rail.  The article from a few months back about roof detailing, followed up by numerous updates by the author of other types of roofs is an example of the type of material that would have the widest potential audience. 

On the other hand keepiing a balance of articles that would have a narrower appeal is also necessary.  As an example, you should cover narrow gauge, but if the magazine became another version of Narrow Gauge Gazzette, you would probably lose the interest of non-narrow gauge modelers. 

Scenery on a model railroad used to be generic, one size fits all.  Now with model railroaders modeling specific scenes or specific parts of the country, scenery has become as much a "prototype model" as our new and improved locomotives and cars.  I think the trap that you need to avoid there is to publish scenery articles only on your "back yard".  I've noticed a tendency for the print magazines to become too provintial.  MR seems to focus too many of their project layouts and scenery articles on Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the surrounding areas.  Mr also seems to have a few favorite authors, that result in a lot of New England projects.  RMC falls into the trap of focusing on the Eastern seaboard.  I think that a successful magazine needs to purposely broaden it's focus to have something for every part of North America including Canada during the course of a year.   Most of your publishing crew is from the Pacific Northwest.  It could get really easy to just fall back on modeling Washington and Oregon because that is what you are most familiar with.  If one were to read an entire year's worth of issues and then be unable to tell for sure exactly what part of the country the publisher lived in because of the variety of subjects covered, you have succeeded.  In the same way, if after reading an entire year's worth of issues, one gets such a wide variety of prototype railroad info that the reader would not know for sure that you model the S.P., you have also succeeded. 

This does not mean to ignore the Pacific Northwest or the S. P., but to balance the coverage with articles of other railroads and places.

Needless to say this also puts a responsibility on the readers to submit articles on subjects of a wide enough variety to allow the magazine achieve such a goal. 

If new people, particularly young people, are to be attracted to the hobby in any meaningful numbers there has to be a way to control costs....maybe manufacturer direct to the public?

It's all relative - and I don't think comparing current prices to prices 10 years ago is a relevant comparison. Everything has gone up in price - what you need to compare to is the cost of OTHER HOBBIES today.

And model railroading does quite well. What's the cost of entry into computer gaming, for example? Or model airplanes? Or radio controlled cars?

I think you will find $200 - $300 for a decent train set compares quite favorably with those other hobbies.

Or if you want sticker shock around a hobby, try checking out the prices of doing doll houses for adults ... sheesh!

And finally, if you want to consider hobbies like boating or motorcycles or cars ... well, model railroading today is a LOT cheaper than those hobbies.

THAT'S the comparison that matters - not what this hobby used to cost back when everything was also cheaper - except electronics ... (wink)

Almost all photos of hobbyists in MRH magazine are of senior folks, and that has been the tradition in all model railroad mags since I can remember, going back 50 years.

Perhaps you can find a way to get photos of younger hobbyists in the mag. They don't necessarily have to write an article, just be truly participating in the photo.

While it's true the "good old days" were cheaper, $5 to $6 per section of flex track adds up to a sizeable investment quickly. A person who is new to the hobby not only has to delay instant gratification due to the nature of model railroading, but compared to a video game that will run on the PC he probably already has and will run as soon as he boots it up may be just one of the things that causes a newcomer to choose another hobby.

Of course everything costs more now than it did 10 years ago but it might be time to think outside the box to try to attract new folks. Manufacturer direct sales may not be the answer but I'm not sure we just want to shrug our shoulders and say "Oh well everything else has gone up too". MRH is proof that smart people can always come up with more than one way to skin a cat for the betterment of the hobby as well as the bottom line.