The page count is related to the advertising count-- the June issue of Trains that arrived today has 2 pages of non-Kalmbach ads, plus the rear cover. The advertising vanished, and the page count declined. R&R seems to have a much healthier advertising base.

The ownership listing shows a number of names from Kalmbach's past- last names that were contributors to Model Railroader, or past KPC executives and editors. Earlier versions of this showed such names as Morgan and Wescott.

Many years ago, it was mentioned by a Trains staffer that MR financially subsidized Trains for many years; Al. K. wanted to publish Trains, even though for the first 15-20 years, it was financially about a break-even at best.

Sad to see the empire of 1027 crumble like this; I agree that after Jim Wrinn was gone, it's been a pretty poor publication.

Howard P.

A challenge of a small company like this is the ownership. As each generation takes control, there are more and more owners, many with little to no interest and participation in the company. However, every owner wants their annual payments and the few actually involved tend to work hard for little more than the others.

Many small firms like this last about 3 to 4 generations before either a few family members buy everyone else out or the entire firm is sold off to someone else.

To me, the action isn't a surprise. What is a surprise is how quiet the sale went with so many people potentially involved.

Bart

Just so you're not giving a distorted picture here.........

I had occasion to dredge through the Kalmbach file library at one time ages ago doing research for a project, and I saw firsthand several of these filed-away stories. But, more specifically, they had notations on them regarding PAYMENT for the stories. In other words, David P. Morgan (at least) paid for any stories filed away. I got the impression from notes and late librarian George H. Drury that some of these stories were assignments, or stories requested by the editors of certain writers on speculation. I would easily take that against "The Black Hole of Newton," where you quickly learned never to entrust irreplaceable original slides to Jim Boyd........

As for the "golden children" moniker, I can tell you that editors and publishers EVERYWHERE will highly favor, and return repeatedly to, writers and photographers that can produce in a timely fashion or who can write entertaingly or at least coherently, AND abide by the "rules." The bane of editors' existence is potential contributors who apparently have never even read the magazine, who have no idea what kind of material they want, sending them what looks like a college paper along with an unedited, uncaptioned pack of photo prints.

The recent two decades of internet access, digital photo files (it no longer costs you 25-60 cents every time you snap the shutter on slide film, more for print priocessing), and "auto-everything" cameras with far more latitude than slide film has vastly opened up the photography submission market, and it shows vastly for Railpace Newsmagazine and R&R. Print railfanning is no longer the domain of the guy who can afford a black-and-white darkroom. But that same internet access has sadly eliminated a lot of the desire or "need" for magazines of all sorts in the first place.......