Railway Herald to become paid-for?

[crewmeal]

Regardless of how much it costs, I won't be subscribing. It being a free, weekly magazine was the only reason I started to read it and even then, I only skimmed it and looked at the pictures.

Free for four weeks..okay, cool. Goodbye after that.

Agreed. Me too I won't bother. Plenty of info and pics elsewhere. The quality of them has been p**s poor anyway.

 

[Pete2210]

Well I've had a look at it and I'm not impressed with the "New" format, the PDF method of publishing worked fine for me, but my verdict......goodbye RH.

Pete

 

[anthony263]

Well I've had a look at it and I'm not impressed with the "New" format, the PDF method of publishing worked fine for me, but my verdict......goodbye RH.

Pete

I have read the new mag, Yes it does look good and the new subscription seems to be 38p per issue but I must admit why bother especially when I get Rail & The railway magazine on subscription already.

 

[Pete2210]

railtalk.org/

Thanks Andy, I've registered and it looks a good Emagazine

Pete

 

[chris89]

Ashame that it has become paided for really. I prefered it then the pay ones, due to being free honestly.

The new method seems to be a bit strange as PDF's were handy as could be read on phone etc.

Chris

 

[TheJRB]

My contribution will be taken off if it goes into subscription. I give my efforts free just for people to enjoy not for the financial benefit of others. However, let's wait and see and avoid pointless speculation for now.

My feelings exactly. Why should I provide my photographs (which I have done to RH in the past) when they're making money off of it and I'm not? I must say that I agree with the other comments here. Good when it was free, but I feel no urge to pay for it, that's for sure.

 

[Thewanderer]

My feelings exactly. Why should I provide my photographs (which I have done to RH in the past) when they're making money off of it and I'm not? I must say that I agree with the other comments here. Good when it was free, but I feel no urge to pay for it, that's for sure.

If you read the editorial comment at the state you would see that they will be paying for the use of photographs from issue 304.

€0.43 a issue? €21.65 for the year...considering you now pay circa €6.00 per (printed) magazine i'm tempted to give RH a try. After all it is a recession.

 

[dcd]

The format of the magazine is quite common in the digital publishing world. I'm sure if it were in PDF format then one person would subscribe and sent it round to all their mates (not different to the print world when people pass round their copy of Rail Express, Railway Magazine etc) but worse still could upload it onto a website or server - clearly something no publisher would want!

You can download a PDF version from the menu button. We'll I have from my iPad.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Will still use imaging centre cos its still free, nice to look at some shots on there to be honest, but wont be paying for magazine, I used to skim it quickly dont want to sit and read my screen and having to zoom in so ridiculously annoys me too.

 

[Schnellzug]

36p a week, which, if my maths is correct, is near enough £1.44 a Month, doesn't seem bad value when most other monthly magazines wouldn't give very change out of four quid.

 

[theblackwatch]

36p a week, which, if my maths is correct, is near enough £1.44 a Month, doesn't seem bad value when most other monthly magazines wouldn't give very change out of four quid.

You can get electronic versions of some of the monthly mags for around that price.

 

[Skimble19]

Just flicked through issue 300 on my iPhone.. must admit I don't like the new format at all. Yes you can load videos from within the magazine but browsing the magazine is just a pain. Before you could simply zoom in and scroll through, now it spends half a day rendering. Can't say I particularly like the new format either. Oh well, I'll read the last few free issues then that'll be it I think.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Oh well, I'll just stick to Today's Railways UK and the occasional RAIL and Modern Rail in future. I certainly won't be paying out for RH.

 

[WatcherZero]

I may be incorrect, but the magazine will cost £18 but the images section is still free access. Is this correct? If not, it's goodbye from me and even if it is still free I certainly won't be submitting any images for the magazine to publish.

From what it appears its currently free till the end of February then you have to have a 3 month or longer subscription to use the website.

 

[RPM]

Dreadful, mistaken business plan for the RH. Time to play the funeral march..

 

[crewmeal]

Yes some of the photos are good but they only copies and have been taken from other forums and magazines around.

 

[theblackwatch]

Yes some of the photos are good but they only copies and have been taken from other forums and magazines around.

The pictures used are contributed to the magazine and not just taken from other places!

 

[asylumxl]

The pictures used are contributed to the magazine and not just taken from other places!

But they are probably posted elsewhere. I think they meant they're not exclusive.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

Another free site that runs a lot of the major news items is

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/news.php

 

[moonrakerz]

Also not keen on the portrait orientation. Too much zooming and scrolling on my 22" widescreen display. Landscape was perfect.

Totally agree with this - the new page layout is most PC unfriendly !

 

[CC 72100]

As much as I said I wouldn't pay for the magazine, does anyone know if the news section is going to remain free, or will that become part of the pay bit of the site? If it does remain free, I may still give that a skim through every now and again.

 

[theblackwatch]

But they are probably posted elsewhere. I think they meant they're not exclusive.

To be fair this also applies to printed magazines - I know at least two mags published a picture of the Arriva liveried DVT which I'd previously seen online.

 

[phil beard]

What's beginning to annoy me about the new RH site is that so many buttons etc don't work ("oops" messages seem inappropriate) and I can't delete images, see one I uploaded yesterday in my section etc etc. One would have thought this would have been fully tested before going live with it. There again, why would one bother with the "Free" part of the site?

 

[Bedpan]

I must say that I always looked fowrward to reading RH every week. Frankly I think its was well worth 38p per week or whatever.

From a distance I like the layout of the new format too. The only problem is, and what is likely to stop me from subscribing if nothing is done about is, is that its incredibly difficult to read. If its opened on my screen in double page format, the prnt is too small. If its toggled to single page format, the page is readable but only half of it appears on the screen, which means that you have to keep scrolling up and down. Also, some photos extend across the join between the two pages and so its impossible to view them in their entirity.

I quite like the video pictures, but I'm not sure that its entirely clear which are videos and which aren't. (In fact, I've just noticed that some pictures have a "play" ( > ) sign on them, but when I press that, it simply zooms the page in.


Bearing in mind that I wonder if there is extra content in this week's issue to make it more appealing, and that I am concerned that there may in future, as previously, be several weeks in the year when no issue is published, I've not yet decided whether or not to subscribe. I think I will do if they go back to the easy to read landscape format, but not if the format stays as it is and so the magazine becomes a struggle to look at.

I have sent a copy of this post to Railway Herald but told them there was no needs to reply, I expect that they are deluged with "contact us" messages today!

 

[83G/84D]

36p a week, which, if my maths is correct, is near enough £1.44 a Month, doesn't seem bad value when most other monthly magazines wouldn't give very change out of four quid.

Well said, I agree. RH is up to date with news and a lot cheaper than the traditional mags which are more expensive and the news in them weeks old when you get it.

A good deal.

The new layout might need a bit of tweaking though as not very user friendly for me.

 

[Pumbaa]

I don't find the standard of journalism in RH to be all that good. I agree the pricing model is decent, but I do not get enough information out of the magazine. So bye bye.

Although all the best to them. I'm not convinced they'll make it, but there we are. Maybe one of those situations were growth is not always the best option...

 

[philden]

I agree that the worst thing is moving to the layout of a printed magazine for no good reason. The old landscape format was very computer friendly.

Not being able to read off-line is a disadvantage, but I'd subscribe if they revert to the old layout.

Phil.

 

[class47]

I must admit I don't like the new layout. I much preferred RH when it was landscape for viewing on a pc or ipad, portrait only works for printed material.

Also I think that whilst its not a bad price for subscription, I would rather prefer to stick with the Rail Express that I currently view online.

I am also suprised that it doesn't seem to be downloadable, so can't be read offline.

Obviously only time will tell what happens, and I'm sure that Ian Allan know what they are doing, but where does this fit in with all their other railway titles?

 

[RPM]

I must admit, having viewed the latest edition I actually prefer the new layout and functionality. Nonetheless, I still don't want to pay for it.

 

[Temple Meads]

It was fine for getting my fix of railway news, but there's no way I'm prepared to pay for it.

Pity.