Make up model railroad tour “books”. You could probably do this in conjunction with the D-P-B DVD’s as well.
What I mean is that while I know MR has covered a lot of model railroads in the pages of the magazine, for some of us those articles are barely a taste of some of the larger layouts. And a lot of them are in the decade plus of MR’s that I missed while I was in Germany and such. A bit expensive to make up in back issues, as it were.
What I’d like to see MR offer as PDF’s (since I think traditional book form would be too expensive) is a greatly expanded version of those layout articles in the magazine - with tons and tons of more photos of the layout as well. The sort of layout article that would literally enable you to walk into the real layout… and feel like you already knew it, and where everything was. Something along the lines of 20-30 pages with photos.
Celebrity layouts that I’d like to see include:
Eric Brooman’s Utah Belt
Jim Hediger’s Ohio Southern
Dean Freytag’s steel empire
George Sellios’ F&SM
Allan Keller’s V&O (both old and new)
Sam Posey’s layout - I think it’s based on the Colorado Southern
Some of the more amazing club layouts.
And there shouldn’t be any sniping about them being just reprints of articles from the magazine.
I must agree that more in depth layout articles or design articles would be interesting but I would not be willing to pay $5-10 for them. This would be much more successful if it was included as part of a magazine subscription.
I don’t know what they charge currently, but I do agree that subscribers ought to get a healthy discount (like 30%). Also, no one download should approach the cost of one of their monthly editions, which up here is near $11.00.
Nice idea but…I don’t believe we’ll ever see this however.In my mind,it doesn’t sound right for for a business oriented venture to offer products that would compete with it’s “bread&butter” product,unless this option provided them with the same or better income potential.Train modeling is our goal while it is MR’s way to their goal which is money.Would you like advertising filling half or more of the PDF files.
I’ve stopped my subscription to MR because I got tired of paying a hefty price for 8 to 10 pages of interesting content and don’t think it would be cheaper in PDF files,even if it meant leaving the useless stuff out.
I often see references to older articles and such in current articles. If there were an easy way to access the reference material, I think I might pay a little extra for the material. In a perfect world, I’d like to log on and get articles from the past as PDFs as part of my current subscription. I’d even be willing to pay extra for the privilege of accessing historical information. However, I’m the type of guy who is not willing to pay for something without seeing it first. Example, I’m not spending $5-10 for the new PDFs available online without knowing in advance if the content will be valuable to me.
Something for MR to consider - exploiting new technology, MR can allow me to download the full article, view it, and judge if the download was worth while after viewing. If I don’t pay in a reasonable period of time, the PDF becomes unviewable. Furthermore, I’m unable to print or screen capture the PDF until it’s paid for. Since the PDF is tailored to me, only I can read it using a key that they provide. Of course I can download it again, and again, but I would have to request a new key each time. Abuses can be easily spotted.
Although, having been in the content delivery industry, this is a sticky wicket that content-based companies are not confortable with. For every technological solution, a hack or exploit will be found to circumvent the legal and profitable use of the technology. Divx being the best example.
Personally, I would just prefer it, and might even subscribe again, if they showed the layouts in the magazines to begin with… Rather than 4 or 5 different angle shots of the same scene… I like to read magazines in places where I’m not going to carry a computer and if I have to print the stuff to do so, it just isn’t worth it to me… Further, if I have to Pay for the privelage of viewing a layout, frankly, I’m not interested… There are a lot of great layouts online already to look at and it doesn’t cost a dime beyond your ISP costs…
I think it’s a great idea and I would definately purchase. When I like a layout featured in MR I always want to see more. I don’t expect a free ride just because I’m a subscriber.
I have actually been planning to contact Kalmbach cutomer service to find out if they can provide reprints in .pdf format or color copies of out of print articles. There are a lot of great articles in old MR issues that are completely sold out. Putting them on .pdf would give them an unlimited supply of those issues and make their customers happy too. A win-win situation.
It might be just as easy to search out back issues from MR, and if they are out, from used magazine dealers. I think MR’s back issues are $5.50 - for the entire issue. Order several and the postal cost would be spread around more.
Just a suggestion. My copies go back to 1970, and I have friends who have older issues, so I can always borrow what I might need.
If I want to read an article that was printed in a past issue, regardless of how old, I have to order the complete issue, and with postage, it’s close to $10. Too much to pay for a 2-3 page article. I’d rather send some individual 2 or 3 bucks to scan it and emal it to me…
There is also Ebay , Train shows, and hobby shops. One or all of the 3 can get you the entire year often for about $12 ($1 per issue)… I know I’ve filled the gaps going back to 1950 that way in my meager collection, and I didn’t begin subscribing until 1980.
Pay $5 to $10 for the 3 or 4 page PDF if you like but I’ll stick with paper copies, containing other articles, old ads, the occasional cartoon drawing, etc… Much easier to carry into the reading rooms, if you know what I mean [:D] …
My primary concern with additional content for an additional fee is that it will lead to most of the interesting content being shifted to additional fee portions of the site. This has already happened with many news sites.
I will agree that I would like more information on certain topics but I don’t want to see MR as an advertisment for the additional content. The costs associated with the additional content would likely be very low since it would generally involve adding digital images to the website. If this service was available for say $5/year I might be willing to opt for the additional content.
When I am interested in articles, layouts, or other material that was printed in back issues of magazines, I go to the public library. They have an extensive collection of MR magazines from the 1930s up to the current issue. Although I subscribe to MR and a few other model railroad magazines, it is great to have access to older out-of-print issues. The older issues have a lot of great scratchbuilding plans and articles in them. Most public libraries also have a collection of recent and out-of print model railroading books that can be checked out. As far as paying for the privilege of viewing layouts, I wouldn’t. There’s many supurb layouts on the internet that can be viewed for free by anyone with internet access.
I agree with Jeff here. Why pay more for a back issue than it cost originally? Yeah I know, someone has to store all that info etc. etc. The idea of the train shows really worked out for me. When I started this in Jan 05 and a MR subscription, there are a lot of years with a lot of good information missing from my repository. A few months ago at a local show I was able to pick up 8 years of MR mags (that’s 96 original copies) for $8. They were the early 80’s and a couple of years from 2000 onward. [:p]
I have to agree with ouengr. Such a concept could easily lead to the hardcopy magazine becoming nothing more than a teaser, with all the meat of a layout tour or modeling project held back for PDF download at a significant extra charge to the hobbyist.