Trains.com

[brynna79]

Hi, 

 

I just wondered if anyone here used the Trains.com subscription in anger.  I currently subscribe to Trains and Model Railroader, usually through the Black Friday Sales that Zinio have and at a price some £20 or pounds less than what the exchange rate is giving for the Trains.com website. I appreciate that you get 5 magazines from this, including Classic Trains, which I like on occasion. 

 

If so, then I just wondered how the interface was and if it is good value for money with the videos and digital versions of Kalmbach books.  Once my subscriptions end this month, I may take the 30-day free trial out and see for myself but wondered what people's views were.  As an aside, I seem to be drifting to the White River publications for content a bit more as well, I'm not sure why this is, but i feel they offer good reading content each month. 

 

Cheers

[Angelus]

Hi, I subscribe to the full package through Trains.com and find it fairly user friendly. You have to access the magazines through the archive menu for each magazine but not only do you get the current issue you can access all the back issues too. going back years! sometimes the magazines when loading have occasional glitches, loading the pages upside down or not at all, but if i go back later its fine. There is a lot of video content some of which is only

available to members. The package doesn't give access to the special editions so I use Zinio for those.

I subscribe to RMC too and it is a more serious modeller content I find. Again you have access to back issues back to 2012. They have their own digital platform.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Terry

[brynna79]

Hi Terry, 

Just what I wanted to know.  I don't always want the special issues, so that isn't too much of an issue for me - although I have found some of the ones I have enjoyed most, have not been the ones I have sought after!   Never been a big video content user - generally go to YouTube for that, so that may be something different for me to try and get into - I never did get into the BRM Video content for some reason when a subscriber... 

 

Seems I am not alone in the content difference between the two publishers.  I like that you can go back that far for plenty of value reading.  Isn't the White River Productions one also web based.  How do you find that?

 

Cheers

Bryn

[Angelus]

Hi Bryn,

 

Glad to help. Re-reading my reply I realise my description of the RMC digital access wasn't very clear. It's through RailroadModelCraftsman.com  and when you subscribe they give you password access. The White River Productions  App which I use on my iPad does the same job, so you can access on either platform. The magazine can be downloaded on the iPad for offline reading which I found useful when on holiday with no internet access. I subscribed when Stephen Priest was editor and really liked the content. When he moved on I felt that it wasn't as good under Otto Vondrak at first but it has steadily improved and I wouldn't miss it now. I also subscribe to the Model Railroad Hobbyist online mag. The mag is free but I I pay for the Running Extra content, they have special offers on all the time so I signed up when it was fairly cheap. The MRH forum is good too. e.g. the superb Tom Johnsons Cass County model railroad which featured in the October 22 RMC can be found on the MRH forum in much greater depth, with lots of useful photos.

 

Terry

[D9020 Nimbus]

I subscribe to MR only, via the website. Cost $2.99 per month, access to back issues going back to 1934 which you can download and keep as PDFs. But MR has shrunk a lot over the years, now just over 70 pages. There are many fewer ads but many fewer editorial pages too—just one layout article per month, for example.