Trains Magazine DVD archive discontinued?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Went looking to see what was available and couldn’t find it. I’m pretty sure it has been updated at least once since the original release (Which I own and ends with the December 2010 issue), but couldn’t find any version of it?

Also absent seems to be the Model Railroader collection, which alas I never did get. Just an update disc is shown. And Classic Trains has an updated collection of the first 15 years (The original that I own is just the first 10), but is now 5 years out of date.

Wonderful products, so I don’t understand why Kalmbach seems to be killing them off. Any chance it’s because updated versions are in the work?

2

Leo, to give you an idea of what I’m worried about… I’ve been a subscriber to this magazine since 1969 Last month, I opted for a one year renewal. :confused:

3

I’ve sadly been getting the same feeling the last few years.

4

What gets me is the latest issue of Classic Trains paid homage to DPM and how great Trains was back in his day, with all the photography and great railfan stories. Yet, today’s Trains is nowhere near the same. They seem (IMHO) to focus too much on the business of railroading and not enough on it as a hobby. I know I’m in the minority, but I also think they went overboard on 4014 coverage.

5

I agree with everything you said, including about 4014. Trains is definitely not what it used to be. The fact that there are so many ads for railroad equipment and services illustrates that the magazine has one foot firmly in the trade journal world. I find a lot of the business-oriented articles (particularly interviews with railroad officials) to be pretty dry stuff.

The magazine today pales in comparison to the DPM days, and even a lot later. The writing, editing and design are sadly just not top-drawer. And unless I am imagining this, the paper quality (perhaps excepting the covers) is lower now.

I read and enjoy a lot more in Classic Trains than I do in Trains.

6

I think that part of the changes are due to the introduction of Classic Trains. Articles about histories and past developments naturally tend to gravitate to that publication, leaving the classic Trains (see what I did there? lol) to more current issues and news. Still, the Januray issue (with eight pages about #4014) did also include an equally substantial (eight pages) article about Detroit MC statian, and good (though shorter) one about fixing Amtrak.

I find there are cycles of 2-3 issues that I find little to excite me but if I wait it out, the next several are quite good, with at least one “can’t put down” in there.

And, as I found out all too often when reshelving my back issues, what is uninteresting today can become quite fascinating ten years from now.

7

I would guess that they are waiting until there is enough new material to make it more worth issuing another CD. After loading so many years on the first discs, even 5 years doesn’t neccessarally make enough for a fresh edition.

8

One thing that Trains seems to lack today is pure volume.

How many pages to print has to fit into a formula that I think runs in multiples of 16 pages. Somewhere in there is a trade-off between the desired cost of the magazine and the cost of producing and printing those additional pages. They can’t just add one leaf (4 pages). Now you have to come up with more advertising, and more editorial content. If you have both readily available, great.

Which is to say that part of this is a function of the candy bar syndrome.

I hesitate to complain about advertising. We probably wouldn’t be able (or willing) to pay for the magazine without it, and in some ways, seeing ads for rail-related items and equipment is informative in and of itself.

And let’s face it - who else is going to advertise in a railroad-oriented magazine?

Trains is far better about advertising than some magazines I’ve seen where the table of contents is on page 20 (or more), the preceding pages being all full page ads.

9

I agree with all your points.

But as for rail-industry-targeted ads, while I also enjoy seeing them, part and parcel is that Trains has to give rail executives stuff to read. If those guys don’t get some content, they won’t read the mag and see those slick ads for MofW equipment, etc.

Back when Trains was purely for railfans, they somehow survived only on ads targeting railfans; which was amazing, actually, but somehow they did it for decades.

A lot of the mag is ads for Kalmbach stuff; so one wonders if the mag could run a modest loss on its own books, yet Kalmbach would still be doing just fine in the railroad realm.

10

What I would like is an updated version of the DVD that supports the latest version of MacOS, but noting that very few new Mac’s have optical drives which suggests the collection be available as a download.

OTOH, I do think Apple could have taken a page from Sun and used the Sun’s “Containers” concept to run an image of an older version of MacOS under their latest and greatest.

11

Just for grins you can download a copy of WPMacApp and see if the Basilisk/SheepShaver emulation in there can access the Collection. As far as I know, running a VM of an older instantiation of MacOS has not been a particular issue (other than not being sufficiently supported by crApple, but that’s their wack priority, not mine) and of course the Windows alternative via many different approaches will run the thing perfectly happily.

The issue – as with the probably-still-current “glitch” in using certain Firefox versions with the Kalmbach PM software – is in Kalmbach intentionally allowing access to a very expensive product to be technologically ‘broken’ by one of those periodic ‘we don’t care about legacy software’ crApple OS updates, without even so much as an offer to exchange it out ‘in kind’ for one that still works. Of course the mealymouthed excuse on both sides was ‘they did it, let them fix it’.

There’s a relatively wide range of external (mostly USB 3.x-compatible) optical drive types that work nicely with Mac hardware; I would no more consider buying a Mac without having one of these handy than I would have bought a NeXT machine without a plug-in floppy drive (at the time). Some of these are full Blu-Ray capable and remarkably thin and light (and are mostly self-powered, which has worked reliably on all the Macs I tested without the two-to-one power cord adapter)

I fully understand why Kalmbach is unlikely to provide one of the ‘collections’ on stick media, or let it out as a download even with crippling and dubious-quality copy ‘protection’ of the sort used on my older Mac version. In a world where there can be multiple cloned versions of Gerb

12

Even when Trains runs an article on an interesting shortline or regional to visit, they don’t always have a locomotive roster attached.

PS-There seem to be more “what Kalmbach is doing wrong” threads nowadays. If subscribers and regular newstand readers are voicing their discontent, just imagine how many others are so disgruntled that they don’t even look at it anymore.

13

Trains used to always identify the locomotive(s) type(s) in every photo’s caption. That was good for a guy like me, as I’d learn about the types of locos. I’m not someone who would ever seriously research engine types, but I used to pick up quite a bit by osmosis. I miss that.

14

What is really sad is that 40 years from now the youngsters of today will look back on “now” and and recall it as “the good old days”.

Seriously guys, I’m a fairly critical person, and I don’t rellly have much problem with the magazine the way it’s written. It often seems a little thin, and I think that steam belongs in Classic Trains…those are about the only two criticisms that I have.

Sure, I miss Don Philips, and Larry Kauffmann’s wit, but ya can’t have everything.

Sometimes I think this magazine suffers a similar peril to other “enthusiast” magazines that I read…and what that is…we come into the hobby pretty green, so everything we read is new information to us…we are spellbound. But, as we acquire knowledge, we gain a level of expertise, and suddenly the magazine’s “entry level” articles no longer fascinate us.

So really it is more ~us~ that is changing…as we become more sophisticated, we become harder to please.

I do miss the way Hemphill used to push back-issues here in the forum…where some reader would ask a specific question about railroad operations, and Mark would begin his response with “that subect was expertly explained in the jun 1966 issue of trains magazine, but following is a brief explanation…”

I thought that showed marketing savvy …I don’t know how many back issues that actually sold, but I thought that the effort was commendable.

I think that Kalmbach’s back catalog is an underutilized asset. What I would like to see is the creation of an on-line table of contents for every back issue, with at least a short phrase describing the content of each individual article in eash issue.

Then, sell online .iso files of either each issue or entire years for a set fee, maybe $2.50 per issue with a discounted $25 for an entire calandar year.

Then we could burn our own discs and save Kalmbach the costly production/d

15

And that happens on forums, too - leading to “we beat that to death already” and “try using the search function” when a newer member asks a question. It happens on many forums, not just here.

The approach Mark used is far better - “you can find that in thread XYZ, but for now…”

16

I think you hit the nail on the head, C.O. I’ve noticed that in myself, and I also realize that my main interest wanders. Over the years my interest in track structure and maintenance of same has increased.

17
18

In response to Lithonia Operator, I agree that Trains is, to some extent, a trade journal reporting on contemporary railroad issues rather than just a railfan publication. This isn’t a new development. In my department at an unnamed railroad, we regularly circulated a copy of Trains, since we regarded it as a pretty good source of information on current railroad developments and issues, in many respects, better than publications (again unnamed) which purported to focus on contemporary railroad issues. Obviously, the reason that you see ads for railroad equpment and sevices in Trains is because the advertisers know that professional railroaders are reading the magazine.

Personally, I like that, and I suspect many other readers do too. I’ve always found the business of railroading to be fascinating, far more so than the type of locomotive that might have been on the head of a freight train going over Cajon Pass last September. But, of course, some readers probably prefer the latter, and that’s fine too. There’s room for both in a publication like this.

With respect to Classic Trains, if you are interested in the business of railroading, the latest issue (“20/20 Hindsight”) is a must. It has articles from some very knowlegeable people (some of whom were insiders in the rail industry) on the changes in the rail industry that occurred in the 20th century. It’s not just a picturebook of things no longer with us. It explains, in considerable detail, why they are no longer with us. Probably boring to some readers. But really interesting to others (like me).

19

It would seem very likely to me that Trains will offer an 80 year disc in the very near future. And that disc will have new and improved pricing.

Ed in Kentucky

20

The problem with having 20 articles in the mag is that they were all too short and mostly superficial.

Maybe I missed it, but one of the best two articles I’ve ever read about working railroaders were in Trains in the 70’s and, unless I’ve missed them, have never been reprinted in CT, also many others have. They were by John Crosby IIRC and were about him working the Ft Wayne line of PC and also a semi-fictional one of firing a K4.