Railway Herald

[CWJ]

I'll start by pointing out that this is not strictly a model railway magazine; I hope that doesn't offend anyone

 

Railway Herald (website here: http://www.railwayherald.com/) has been given a a different format and a price tag (it was previously free). I'd be interested in what other RMWebbers make of it, as I'm not sure!

 

Positives:

• It's still there (it was previously run voluntarily so I'm glad the editors have decided to continue on a commercial basis rather than give it up) and the quality is still excellent, as we regular readers would expect
  
• There was at least one video embedded (I think that's the right term!) in the latest magazine, a nice new touch
  
• Some of the new menus are easier to navigate than before and offer new functions, particularly when submitting photos
  

Negatives:

• It now costs money to download the magazine and other news features from the website (I believe access to other parts of the website such as images remains free of charge) - but it's excellent value for money
  
• I'm not sure if I'm happy with my freely-donated images now being used by a commercial organisation; I uploaded them on the basis that they would be freely available to fellow enthusiasts and used for no other purpose. Clearly if I now submit a new image for publication that is different, as I know what the image will be used for, but will RH pay for images as other magazines do?
  
• I just can't get used to the new way in which the magazine is displayed. The portrait format doesn't fit a computer screen (better for iPads I suppose, but you can turn those round!) and the zoom only allows you to see two pages (too small to read) or a close-up view which is great for examining photos but I like to read a full page width so I don't miss anything to the left or right.
  

These are just my personal opinions; feel free to have your say! ...or put me in my place if I have got anything completely wrong.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

PS. If any of the RH editorial team are on here, I'd be delighted if they could respond. Hopefully my concerns are unjustified and easily overcome.

['CHARD]

At what point do we have to pay to read RH? I just scanned the new issue (300?) with no problems. Granted the sizing has been altered but I was able to read and graze the necessary industry info I wanted - with a bit of toggling.

[i-gadget]

I had a quick scan through it last night - I too didn't like the two position zoom 'feature', but then discovered the full screen option - click on the 'square' - bottom RHS of screen - which helps a little, otherwise I found the text was too small in 'normal' view.

 

Also I believe they will be paying for photo submissions - not a lot to start with, but could increase - according to the blurb in the mag. Payment isn't required until end of Feb.

 

There were quite a few embedded videos - I missed some to start with and had to 'flick' back through the pages and hover over the photos to see if they were in fact videos!

 

Still haven't decided whether to subscribe - really enjoyed reading it in it's old format - but I guess progress beckons...

 

John

[Andy Y]

It was announced in the previous issue 299 that they would be moving to these changes as part of a joint venture with Ian Allan. I've long been amazed by the levels of commitment and time invested in the publication as I'm sure no-one was getting rich off the volume of advertising. The charge will be £18.00 for 48 issues/12 months (with 13 months for 12 if paid by the end of February)which equates to 38p an issue so I think it's good value to be honest although I'm not as interested in contemporary matters and news as I am in historic or modelling.

 

I believe all archive issues and non-subscriber areas of the site will remain uncharged.

 

It's a commercial decision and there's an assumption that net based material doesn't or shouldn't cost; an assumption which has bugged me for some time. I wish them well with it although I feel the previous landscape format would be better than the change to a double portrait spread.

[CWJ]

'CHARD - I assume from the next issue (301) onwards a subscription is required. I haven't had time to read the latest mag in full yet so there may be further info in there.

 

John - thanks for the update; I know what you mean about progress, there is lots of good stuff happening but I can't stop myself from thinking 'I preferred it before they changed it'! Probably says more about me than the magazine...

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[chrisf]

Will, you are not alone. The new format is irritating and looks like a classic case of "because I can". Will I subscribe to it? Don't know yet.

 

Chris

[Xerces Fobe2]

The new format whist full of good intention however I found time-consuming and irritating. My magazine of choice is Modern Railways which I have purchased every month for@ 42 years. Whist there is nothing wrong with the Railway Herald; it is OK for a freebie however I will not be subscribing to it.

 

XF

[jwealleans]

I've been a reader for some time but will not be carrying on. The pdf downoad was great for reading when you had no (or no reliable) internet connection - on the train for example. I find the new format hard to read, either too small or too close up. I was interested in the content but not so interested that I'll pay for a subscription. The occasional Railway Magazine when travelling will keep me as up to date as I want to be.

[Edwin_m]

You'd think these e-zines would make sure they had a good user-friendly interface, but I haven't found a good one yet and this one seems as bad as any. If they are solely on-line why do they use features such as columns and photos spreading over two pages, which work well in print but are just an irritation on the screen? Neither the arrow keys nor the scroll wheel did anything, you have to mouse to a triangle at the bottom of the screen to go down, then to the top of the screen to go up to the top of the next column, then somewhere else to go to the next page!

 

Unless the format improves significantly before they start charging then I'll be giving this one a miss.

[Adrian]

It's a shame they had to go the route they've chosen. I understand the commercial drivers and if they weren't getting the funds through the advertisers then it's hard to see what other options are available. As a free weekly then I can see why people would contribute photo's and although I seem to remember that they will start paying for photo's I still think they'll lose some input.

 

I really liked the landscape pdf format as going full screen I could flick through for the points of interest ( to me anyway). The new format is extremely irritating, the page being slow to load, the initial image very poor quality and you have to wait a second or two before realising that it's not your eyesight failing but that it takes time to load the high quality image.

 

Anyway as no more than a casual reader I found this link on another forum to Railtalk online. This has a monthly pdf magazine which has some cracking photo's, so I think this'll be my monthly update for whats going on. It'll be interesting to see what sort of spike they get in download numbers over the next month or two!

[Chris116]

I have been reading Railway Herald for over two years now and always enjoyed it. As time has gone on it has certainly improved but this new format is totally user unfriendly. If six weeks ago they had asked for a subscription I would have gladly paid it but unless they do something about the new format in the next three weeks then I will be an ex-reader from the start of the subscription era.

It is nearly impossible to follow the articles as you have to bounce the page up and down due to the use of three columns. It takes twice as long to load on my system which left me waiting for most of the time and since I normally read RH while on my meal break at work, time is a ver important commodity. Then we have photos spread across two pages and captions for a photo on the facing page. You cannot read the caption without zooming but once you zoom, you cannot see the photo!

A lot of hard work has gone into this update and I for one am very sorry to be so critical but for me an interesting format has been totally spoilt by what I saw today.

[eastwestdivide]

Yes, it's a usability nightmare in its current form. Even if you're lucky enough to have a portrait-format screen available, you can't get a single (portrait) page to fit the screen, only a spread or a zoomed-in version. No control over zoom levels.

As others have said, screens and paper aren't the same, and a lot of designers don't take that into account.

[GreenBR]

Prefer the old format. As for the comercial stuff each to there own.

[CWJ]

Thanks for all the comments, especially the last one which seems to sum up the general concensus pretty concisely!

 

Personally I think I'll continue to follow RH because it's an excellent publication I don't think it deserves to lose custom for the sake of 38p. It does, however, need to tweak the presentation format, as I'm clearly not alone in struggling with it.

 

We must bear in mind that they probably only changed this because people complained about PDFs... you can't please everyone!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[RJS1977]

I started reading the latest issue but gave up after about 3 pages as I was getting fed up of the constant scrolling in the zoom mode. So no, I won't be subscribing to it... And as others said, as a freebie it was an interesting read, but not sure I'd have bought it anyaway (though would probably have paid half the price for a mag half the size).

 

Pity as it was something I looked forwards to every Sunday evening....

[ngtrains.com]

I have to say i dislike the new format as well and seriously doubt I'll bother subscribing to something that irritates me, i can get enough irritation for free without paying for it.

 

However, I did find a way to read it like I used to. I have a PDF printer on my PC and if you print all the pages to a PDF document it saves the magazine as a PDF and you can read it looking like it used to and offline

[brushman47544]

I'm not too keen on the new format either. The previous version was quick and easy to read and included all the up-to-the-minute news that I was interested in and that's why I read it. All the other stuff that is more detailed and less time sensitive may well be interesting but there are already magazines out there that do that well. It seems that the Railway Herald is trying to compete with them by adopting their format and content. I wish them success but it doesn't really appeal to me and I'm happy with the printed magazines that I already get, so I will probably not subscribe.

 

So, subscription or not, I'd prefer them to have continued with the old format.

[Jon020]

I've followed Railway Herald for quite a time... not sure when I first caught it, but at least two years ago (probably more). I have always found it a useful point of reference; not everything interests me, but I took it as an industry "news" paper, and with its weekly issue I found that it was a useful point to see what's up. A quick scan through during a lunch hour was usually enough. The new format isn't something that particularly appeals... I wasn't taken by the zoom function or some of the image quality when I zoomed in; not quite as HD as I thought it implied... and not as good as the previous format. I read this on a standard PC monitor or a laptop... which well suits landscape format... in this format, I found myself having to squint to read it full screen' my eyes aren't brilliant... but they're not that bad!

In addition, we're now going to have to pay... ok, that's no different to nearly all other publications (granted) but now we need to decide where to spend our pennies.

I went and had a look at "rail talk"... very nice pics.... but why rail talk..? more like rail pics! I thought this more of a pictorial; it's not an alternative to RH, but a nice browse all the same.

with RH going commercial, I will have to wish them luck. I still haven't quite grasped the pay your money and get an electronic mag - no I don't have a Kindle.. I prefer a book - off topic, sorry, but I like to browse through a mag, anywhere, anytime. It's been good to be able to sit and browse RH when I had comp access at lunctimes... and note all advertising... but I will probably stop when I need to pay to read this news paper.

 

Good luck to all at RH, I wish you every success in your new commercial venture.

[paftrain]

Shame they had to change it - I've been reading it for at least two years, but only for the Steam articles. Think I'll give it a miss from now on.

[Talltim]

Reading it work I used to like the PDF function of being able to turn the pics off, made it less obvious to the boss ;-)

[shinter]

I have only a passing interest in todays railway, but have enjoyed RH . I don't like the new format , a little disappointed regarding its new partner.

 

I have sensed it was always heading towards being a paid for digital magazine, good luck to all concrened.

 

Martin

[winterbournecm]

I liked the Herald as I have a passing interest in todays "unitised" railways. I dont rate steam which was becoming very dominant of late.

It was great as a snapshot of todays special workings, new liveries and heritage locos on the network. I fear that many will keep up with this via the free gallery. I rarely have an update railway magazine, though I have brought Traction for many years for the BR blue stuff which is my era.

 

Good luck though - I have an extensive gallery with them, and will continue to send the occasional photo to the gallery, and maybe inclusion in the mag as has happened in the past.

[Peter Beckett]

_{I sent an email to them asking about retaining the PDF format and this was the reply I received today:}

 

Dear Sir,

Over the past 72 hours, Railway Herald has received significant feedback, which we are monitoring and listening to. The number of positive comments is very encouraging, as are the initial subscription figures, which are ahead of where we expected them to be.

READABILITY AND EASE OF USE CONCERNS

We have always said that we listen to readers opinions, and although we aim to do the best for the title and the readership, on occasions we acknowledge that some people may not be in favour of changes for a variety of reasons. From feedback received, the key concern relates to the readability and ease of use of the new title. While there have been many positive comments about the new reader software, a number of people have encountered difficulties, and we have therefore decided to reintroduce the PDF file to the website.

Readers should be aware that given the enhanced magazine, the PDF file size is larger than previously, and having talked with Adobe over the best way for readers to obtain the file, it will now download to your computer, rather than appearing through the browser, or using the Adobe Reader plug-in. This way, the file should download quicker and easier without the problems that some readers previously encountered.

With immediate effect, the PDF is available through our website, and will be provided *alongside* the new digital edition, allowing users to choose the system they wish to view the file on. To keep the PDF file size achievable, it is not possible to embed the video content within the magazine in this format, but we will include clickable links to a video player on the website, to ensure that readers do not miss out on this content.

The above situation will be reviewed over the coming weeks based on reader feedback. Your voice has been heard by the team at RH, and we hope the move will allay the majority of issues that you have reported. The magazine will remain in Portrait style - the decision to move from landscape is not totally based around its use on a computer screen, there are other considerations, although we intend to modify the design, where possible, to assist with reading on the screen. It should be remembered that today, digital magazines are read on computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets, each of which has their own unique qualities and requirements.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

The title will convert to a subscription basis from 29th February. While we know some people are against this move, the only other option is to simply cease the publication - something we did not want to do. The team at RH have attempted for the past four to five years to make the magazine work financially through advertising and private finance, but it has been obvious for the last 12 months that such a model isn't working. Despite the fact that the title has been free, it is a full-time job for two people and part time for further team members, added to this are the charges for bandwidth and IT servers, etc … and the magazine is certainly not free to produce. To provide a better title, and increased value for money, the RH team has been expanded, as has the magazine content, with regular features, new columns and video, part of this being to provide a better magazine for subscribers.

USER ACCOUNTS

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to all website members for the problems encountered with the website over the past 72 hours. It is not the situation we wanted, but I believe that we have now resolved the majority of the issues. In addition, we had a technical glitch with the user accounts system on Saturday afternoon which resulted in us changing the passwords for all accounts. As a result, if you have not already done so, before you log in again, please visit http://www.railwayherald.com/forgottenpassword, enter your email address and you will receive a code to reset your password. Our sincerest of apologies for the inconvenience caused.

As I said at the start, we are monitoring the feedback and, in one sense it is pleasing to note that readers have been vocal and constructive in their comments, both positive and negative, and we intend to keep the situation under review over the coming few weeks. We've tweaked the reader software to improve things, and we will be looking at increasing the font size slightly in the next issue, alongside releasing the PDF.

With regards,

Richard Tuplin

Editor, Railway Herald

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[RJS1977]

I got the same message - essentially a "tough - we're not going to do anything about it". I'm surprised at the comment about the new format being for other devices - I can't think of any other devices that are portrait format.

 

Given all the comments on here I'm also surprised at the high subscription levels - so far I've found nobody who likes the new magazine!

[Edwin_m]

To be fair to them, they are making it available in PDF, which answers some of the concerns on this thread, and considering some changes to the layout. I'll wait and see on that one.