Enjoying old OGR and OSR magazines, and a tribute to Fred Dole

I had the pleasure of meeting Fred and having lunch with him in my dining room when he did a photo shoot of my layout. 

 I had the same experience as Chris. We enjoyed Fred and Edies company for 2 days. Fred was easy to work with and a true perfectionist with his photography.

I'm giving way most of my OGR's as we speak - after I go through them, that is, and I am finding the older ones more interesting than the newer ones - partly because I haven't seen them for a while, certainly - but also for long-forgotten features like "Scrounger's Corner" and "Old and Rare". This hobby has gotten so good - the talent, that is - and feature-ridden (or feature-burdened) that many of the newer articles just don't do it for me. Intimidating, actually. And more about the electronics than the trains. (Yes, I use/install TMCC/ERR - but that's not what this is supposed to be about.) I see layouts and say "I don't have a 100'X100' building or basement; I'll never be that good and I'm not sure I even want to be", and move on.

So, the old OGR's (and MR's and RMC's and I still miss the not-layout-oriented Mainline Modeler) are at my comfort level. I like the black and white just fine; prefer it if it's really crisp.

I have been noticing how much I liked Fred Dole's photography; clear, well-lit but not dramatically so, and crisp (again).

So, I'm saving some of the older OGR's and scanning an occasional article from the rest.

CTT is next.

I knew Fred and bought a few things off of him. He was former  member of the OGR staff but retired early.  We use to communicate regularly as he had many of the original Delta lines buildings on his layout that I reproduced for my layout. Fred was very helpful. We have good memories of the man and we remember Fred as an excellent photographer, a preacher, a scratch builder and an avid model railroad enthusiast. He was active until the end when lost his battle with cancer several years ago. .

Scrounger's Corner and Old and Rare were my first stops when I got a new mag. I really like the black and white pics and ads. And Fred took great shots. He's truly missed.

Another interesting aspect is that the older issues offer a historical perspective of how the hobby was at that time. The older OGR/OSR magazines show that scale trains were very popular in the late 80s, and probably before (my oldest issue is from 1988 so I can't tell what was before that). Williams and Weaver pretty much were the big players, and a fair amount of scratch builders were around, too. There seemed to be a lot of attention paid to track plans. Another neat thing about Fred's layout articles is that he numbered his photos so the reader knew where they were shot as shown in his track diagrams. His photography was the best and is one of the reasons the old issues are still in my possession. Well-framed photos were his trademark.

I agree........ I like reading the old model railroad magazine. I recently purchased a large paper collection from a former Lionel employee who worked for them in the early  50s. His collection included over 500 magazines as far back as the late 1940s all in mint condition. It  will take me the rest of my life to read all these. Do I throw them out after I read them? They don't bring any money. Not sure what I'll do with all these.

before you thoss'm...put them on here for a small price or at least for the postage!