Model Railroading > Carstens closing

I just received an online newsletter from the NMRA Pacific Northwest Region President announcing that Carstens has closed its business.
Bill Pyper
SAlem, OR

wjpyper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just received an online newsletter from the NMRA
> Pacific Northwest Region President announcing that
> Carstens has closed its business.
> Bill Pyper
> SAlem, OR


If that's true, there's nothing to indicate it on their Web site.

It seems that Kalmbach has been a go-getter compared to Carstens as far as growth, handling competition from digital sources, streamlining its staff, testing other sources of revenue, getting out of books, etc. If Carstens threw in the towel, perhaps subscribers can get something for their unfilled subscriptions but if bankruptcy, perhaps nothing. I'll bet in light of falling subscriptions etc., investment in new press (s) was unwise. But instead of rejoicing, I'll bet this makes Kalmbach nervous. Perhaps the new press was digital and the old one not. I know of printing companies that went digital but too late...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/14 18:28 by wabash2800.

The subscription sections of the Railfan & Railroad and Railroad Model Craftsman websites were both accessible. Here's the website for the latter.

http://www.rrmodelcraftsman.com/

While it's usually disappointing when a rail enthusiast or model railroad magazine ceases publication, ever since I've been in the hobby, I've always felt Trains and Model Railroad were superior to their counterparts at Carstens.

Carstens and most other publications contract for the printing and distribution of their magazine. If the printer can't deliver, that doesn't tell you anything about what's going on inside the RMC offices.

Hopefully this is a rumor. I enjoy reading both Railfan & Railroad and RMC. It is nice to have a contrast to Trains and MR. It would be a shame to loose yet another model or railfan publication. To me Railfan & Railroad has never recovered from Jim Boyd's retirement, not knocking Steve Barry, but it is along the lines of trying to replace Bear Bryant--much the same was experienced by Kalmbach when David P Morgan retired.

Jay

If it's a rumor the NMRA guy is in big trouble if that is what he put in print...

No mention of problems on their FB page, either. Time to nip this rumor in the bud!

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

My boss spoke to Carstens last week and they admitted there were some troubles taking place. As a retailer who sells their products, their advice was to "hang in there with us." That's about as far as the convo went.

Has anybody here actually got any mags of late from Carstens. It's been about 6 weeks since my last edition of R&R arrived here in the UK. I'd put that down to the summer holidays, but am now wondering if there is any truth in the story. Chris uk.

Just found this link on another forum
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36997&p=219190



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 01:30 by 55002.

We'll have to wait and see, but sometime what goes around, comes around. Having worked in the corporate world, I know from experience that often customers and creditors are the last to know.

All -
Below is from Bruce Kelly, who used to work for Carstens. He is not a TO member, but asked me to post this.
Dave Franz
Missoula, MT

Mr. Kelly writes...
Re: Carstens having "closed its business." On 8/19, there was a moment where any attempt to go to railfan.com directed you to a general Carstens Publications home page, but later in the day the railfan.com site was operating again as intended. There have indeed been some budgetary challenges at Carstens of late, but as of yesterday I was told that the doors were still open. For now.

Re: Transition from old printer to new printer "resulting in late editions." Not true. Not being able to pay the print charges on time is why there have been late issues.

Re: Kalmbach..."streamlining its staff...getting out of books...etc." compared to Carstens. Not true, and in fact quite the opposite. Trains magazine over the past 15 years has increased its editorial staff while R&R more or less shrank its. R&R used to have three full-time editors (Boyd, myself, Del Vecchio) in the office, plus a three-person art crew, plus two or three ad sales reps, plus other support staff. Today, R&R has essentially one editor who works in the office certain days of the week, and two editors who produce their end of the mag largely from home. In this digital age, that arrangement can be perfectly suitable, if managed properly. Kalmbach still produces occasional books like its Hot Spots softcover and numerous annuals and specials, which are, from a production standpoint, not too different from the occasional softcover books Carstens puts out.

Re: "Perhaps the new press was digital and the old one not." When I was at Carstens, we transitioned from paste-up artwork to desktop/digital production in the early 1990s. The new capabilities of page design in Quark were a giant leap forward from the days of setting type in ASCI, running sheets of printed galley text through a waxer, and trimming it with an X-acto knife and lining it all up on art boards. Paste-up of all those placenames, etc., on the maps took forever! But our first issues of digital production took forever to export to PDF and upload to the printer via the old, slow system we had at the time. So in other words, Carstens has been with a digital printer (we in the industry call it computer-to-plate or direct-to-plate) for many years. However, I will say that their printer would do everyone a great service if they could get their GCR (gray component replacement) and black ink gain under control, and switch to a finer line screen.

monaddave Wrote:
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> Re: Transition from old printer to new printer
> "resulting in late editions." Not true. Not being
> able to pay the print charges on time is why there
> have been late issues.

This explanation is consistent with Carstens' inability to pay its contributing writers and photographers in anything resembling a timely manner, too.

The comments toward the end of this thread at MRH would seem to have a little more weight.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/18957

One would think the RMC name and subscriber list, and the HOn3/On3 Annuals, would have some market value and could continue. Don't know much about Railfan & Railroad or Flying Models.

It's a shame to lose another modeling publication. Web searching for modeling sites and navigating the sign-up requirements can get kind of discouraging.

Hope you used your credit card ! If ya did, you will get your money back, perhaps pro rated.

grahamline Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The comments toward the end of this thread at MRH
> would seem to have a little more weight.
>
> http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/18957
>
> One would think the RMC name and subscriber list,
> and the HOn3/On3 Annuals, would have some market
> value and could continue. Don't know much about
> Railfan & Railroad or Flying Models.
>
> It's a shame to lose another modeling publication.
> Web searching for modeling sites and navigating
> the sign-up requirements can get kind of
> discouraging.


As far as I can tell, this applies only to RMC, and not to all of Carstens shutting down, although I can't say the inability to get Railfan & Railroad out on time (or pay its contributors) inspires much confidence in its future, either.

Bruce Kelly says...

If sources inside Carstens have stated reasons why some magazine have been late,
I would listen to them. They're closer to the situation than I am. BK

Steve Barry of R & R is a frequent TO contributor-strange if its not true why he has not jumped in!!!!!!!!!

If it is true that's too bad. A lot of contributors to RMC were Canadian as were the articles!

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON

If MR added staff, it's because they need to. They down-sized and cleaned house a few years back and I'll bet the net body count is still smaller despite new video services. As for books, they don't do hard cover books anymore and are sticking pretty much with smaller, soft-cover model railroad how-to books and reprints from the magazine. Carstens is still offering books in the more traditional sense, though they may be soft-cover. It was sad that RF&RR had a glaring typo on the front cover a few months ago.

Rmc publishes the interesting and advanced how to articles that mr has not done in years. Like the tank car converted to a covered hopper. Hope it isn't true that they are kaput.