I am not an employee of TRAINS Magazine, but I did play one on TV... err... but I was a columnist for them for two years. I quit my regular work there this fall, to dedicate all my time to my return to college. A few quick things. First, what is in the magazine is NOT "opinion". It is as close to "fact" as was possible at the time of publication. Speaking only for myself, I know there were times mistakes slipped in and had to be later corrected, but these are factoid issues. In any news magazine or publication, slipping in opinions into a news story is a deadly sin that can get you fired. I never did so, and I can unreservedly say that no-one at Trains is giving you their "opinion" unless they are up-front labelling their piece as an opinion piece. Example: Don Phillips writes Op-Eds, and some of our features have been "what we think should happen to Amtrak" and etc.... Regarding the price, I don't know the specific reason, but I'd guess what most others have, that things just cost more. (Paper sure aint cheap anymore, that's for sure!) I'd also like to remind people that subscriptions are far less than $84! Lastly, if you're looking for Steam, Fitz, then today's Trains is about the best you're going to find. But coming back to the point, if you are looking for accurate news reporting about the railroad industry, you will not find a better source than Trains. Be it the paper magazine, or the newswire, it's certainly more accurate than your average newspaper -- Toledo Blade excluded -- and it's far more accurate than a forum posting or an email list. To say otherwise does disservice to those who work at and for the magazine, and whom I had the pleasure of serving two years with.
You and Stourbridge are way behind the times. Posting from the Throne with a laptop is so 2005. Now you post from the porcelain God with a Blackberry.
You can still pick and choose which "facts" to use.................If that were not the case, then every single publication would have the exact same articles in their content.
You've managed to slam every Internet model railroad forum with that statement. While it's an excellent idea to do research on a project, you've shut one other source- the Internet. You seem to forget that Mark Hemphill was part of the CTCBoard staff, along with Dale Sanders, back in the 1980s. Or you eren't old enough to read CTC back then. That's OK- Hemphill isn't DPM, nor will he ever be. A good defense of print media. I still wouldn't give up on the Web just yet- even in print media, you have to do some sorting. It does help to know where to look. Like anything else, it takes effort. And for the record, I do subscribe to TRAINS (since 1975) and R&R (since Issue 1).
I subscribe to three magazines (UK ones). Yes, they are a bit pricey, but I still like to have a magazine in my hands. I have two laptops, but the mags are definitely more portable! One is published at two-weekly intervals, so can be more up to date with news items, but that means twice the cost per month. Regarding prices, one of the mags to which I recently took out a subscription states quite openly that subscriptions are what keeps them going, as only about half the cover price of those sold in newsagents, etc. actually reaches them! Another one has prototype and modelling content within the same magazine - the modelling bit is listed as a supplement and is the centre section. This is a small company and this is a good way of producing two magazines in one.
I have, for reference, the July 2006 issue of Trains magazine on my desk. Is it your contention, doofus, that the Louisville & Indiana doesn't operate a former Pennsy line in Indiana, Brian Buchanan never worked for the Grand Trunk Western, and CSX and Norfolk Southern didn't "un-merge" Conrail? I am a little lost as to how any of those are not facts and are simply the creation of the editor's whimsy as you would imply.
That, sir, was not my intention. As others on here have agreed, the Internet should not be the only source you use for research. Furthermore, I'd venture that an Internet forum should not be the first source for research. On the Internet, as I've said, one has to sort through a lot of "fluff" to find any useable research. It is something to be used in conjunction with other sources, but by virture of it's ease of use it's a less-relable source. (Ask anybody roughly college aged and they'll tell you if they went into a class with a research project written solely off the Internet they'd be laughed out of the class unless they had a very liberal instructor.) As for not using the Internet first, this goes back to doing your own research. Anybody can go on a forum, Trainboard or any other, and ask a question. Sure is handy. But how many of these questions could be solved with a simple Google search? "What type of engine is BNSF 1234?" BNSF doesn't have an engine 1234 I just found out by using Google. How 'bout that? To be honest what really got me fired up about this topic was a few months ago when someone asked "Give me a short history of every major railroad for me to post on my webpage." To me that's the ultimate in lazy. I'd wager that every major railroad has a short corporate history on their official web page. Further, how many books are published on specific railroad companies? To me it's just maddening to see people expect others to do their research. Not at all. I have plenty of back issues back into the 1980s from before Hundman published the magazine. Err... I think we just agreed on something... Don't get me wrong, I think he puts together a hell of a magazine, but where he was taking Trains was simply down the wrong path for the majority of the audience. I have a few issues in my library from when I didn't subscribe because of an article he wrote. He's a detail-oriented author and a phenomenal photographer but the magazine as a whole wasn't fitting what I was looking for in it. I'm not saying research in print media is all sunshine and flowers, but it's more consistent than on the Internet. There are very few books in my collection, even those purchased blind, that have disappointed me. There are plenty of web pages, on the other hand, that are lacking in one way or another. Granted, I've probably looked at more web pages than books in my life, but it seems in my mind that the proportion of disappointment is skewed toward the Internet side. When I pick up a book called "Erie-Lackawanna in Color" I've got a pretty good idea of what's in it. If I get a hit on a webpage through a Google search on railfan's web site I might only find one photo of an E-L car that was spotted in 2004. There are pros and cons to either form of research; I'm simply saying is that the presence of one should not totally negate the use of another. One thing I will commend the Internet for is the ability to conduct a discussion like this. If I pick up a book and disagree with something in it I have more hoops to jump through to tell the author he's full of "it." On the Internet it's much more easy to discuss something and get to the bottom of the matter.
I knew there was something else I forgot to address... I do acknowledge there is a great deal of information in the Internet that isn't available printed anywhere. If I were traveling across the country on Amtrak later this month (Just maybe if...) and I wanted to find what Amtrak's current dining car menu for long-distance trains was I know that probably wouldn't be published anywhere. There are also plenty of news stories that fly under the radar of the railroad press that wouldn't be accessible in any printed format. I will concede that point, but it is my contention that much of what I see of the forums (not just Trainboard) is superfluous.
Ummmm, all I can say is Wow, weren't we talking about Trains Mag format and price... Great Discussion BC
Ya, that's what I thought! The red block with "Trains" in it looks like the older style a couple decades ago, but the inside is really modern. My Dad and I go halves on the subscription and when he's done with it, he brings it over to me.
