10/11/2024
After 10 years of publication, we have decided to discontinue The S Scale Resource Magazine. The final issue was the October/November 2024 issue. This was not a decision we made lightly or quickly. However, for some time, it has been harder and harder to find articles.
With all the great press S scale has received recently, Model Railroader Magazine and Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine to name a few, many people may be looking to enter the hobby in S scale or converting from another scale. Once they do that, they may very well expect a scale magazine to help them along. Well, we were it. We started our 10th year of publishing The S Scale Resource and readership continued to grow. But submissions and advertising, which is all that pays the freight, has lagged. Not everyone sits on Facebook, and if that’s the only way manufacturers promote products, they are missing out on a lot of modelers.
New people to S scale need to see what products are available and what manufacturers are out there, in addition to what others in the hobby are doing. It’s your scale and it is up to you to help these new people, as well as, the whole community of like minded modelers.
We were advised from a long time S scaler that "In case you are not aware, most other RR publications pay serious money for articles. Something in the $75-80 per page is common. Plus more for cover photos. The most prolific S scale writers have earned considerable income from mainstream magazine payments."
We barely have enough advertisers to stay out of the red, so paying that kind of money for articles is not going to happen with The S Scale Resource. Keep in mind that staying out of the red means that the amount of time spent developing each issue and the work involved by us is not compensated. For whatever reason, we just can’t get articles on layouts, building, or anything else for that matter. Manufacturers and dealers are not sending in News items which we publish at no cost.
We were advised to open our magazine up to Flyer and Hi-Rail as well. There is no way we are going to do that as we would be running up against The Dispatch which is the NASG’s (National Association of S Gaugers) magazine. Plus, we feel it would detract from what we were trying to provide – a truly scale publication.
We are not going to blame anyone or anything. It is what it is. S is a great scale with a huge potential for growth, but we have nothing to publish, and therein lies the problem.
We personally feel it’s a shame that with the great press scale S is getting from the big two magazines as new people enter the scale that there will no publication to help them on their journey.
Please note the following resources available to the S Scale modeler:
NASG (https://www.nasg.org/) membership includes The Dispatch magazine bi-monthly which covers all of S scale.
New Tracks Modeling (https://newtracksmodeling.com/) Observations newsletter which is for all modelers and scales.
New Tracks weekly Zoom show every Wednesday at 7:00 EDT on YouTube. You can simply watch on YouTube or sign up at New Tracks and receive a Zoom link to participate.
We have met many new friends within the scale S community, and it’s been a fun journey.
The Website, https://sscaleresource.com, will remain as is for now with all the back issues, unless it becomes cost prohibitive in the future.
We’re sad to be ending the magazine and would like to thank everyone for their support over the last 10 years.
Amy & Dan Dawdy
