Railway Magazine subscribers : no access to the online index, annoying.....

[Justin Smith]

Am I the only subscriber to the Railway Magazine who feels annoyed that they don`t get access to the RM`s online index ? I have an (almost ! ) complete collection of bound RM`s going back to 1940, but, if one wants to find an article on a particular subject, how does one find it ? Each year has an index but what happens of you don`t know the year the article was published ? As an example I wanted to know if there was a RM article on the Elan Valley Railway, but how do I find that without individually checking every index for every year ? ! ?
I did write to the RM`s editor suggesting RM subscribers should at least get access to the online index (i.e. which edition has which article in it), even if they don`t think subscribers should get access to the content, but nothing has come of it. TBH I think the RM`s publishers should make the online index (not the content) freely available, what have they got to lose ?
One has to wonder what the point is of buying the Railway Magazine every month and binding them etc. On the one hand all the content is available online now, and on the other one cannot easily find articles in all those expensively purchased and bound magazines.

 

[Justin Smith]

Allan Bird compiled a Railway Magazine index, but only up to about 1997, I have this* actually, it`s useful but it obviously doesn`t include any content for the last twenty years. I found this forum thread about it. Interestingly Chris Milner answered the "question" on that, he`s now the editor of the RM, though, unfortunately, there`s still no openly accessible index !

* It wasn`t working on my PC, so I searched and eventually found the CD with it on. I then reinstalled it, it now works, though, unfortunately, nothing about the Elan Valley Railway came up ! I wanted to find a map of the latter`s exact route so I could add it to my Cobbs Rail Atlas

 

[Busaholic]

Am I the only subscriber to the Railway Magazine who feels annoyed that they don`t get access to the RM`s online index ? I have an (almost ! ) complete collection of bound RM`s going back to 1940, but, if one wants to find an article on a particular subject, how does one find it ? Each year has an index but what happens of you don`t know the year the article was published ? As an example I wanted to know if there was a RM article on the Elan Valley Railway, but how do I find that without individually checking every index for every year ? ! ?
I did write to the RM`s editor suggesting RM subscribers should at least get access to the online index (i.e. which edition has which article in it), even if they don`t think subscribers should get access to the content, but nothing has come of it. TBH I think the RM`s publishers should make the online index (not the content) freely available, what have they got to lose ?
One has to wonder what the point is of buying the Railway Magazine every month and binding them etc. On the one hand all the content is available online now, and on the other one cannot easily find articles in all those expensively purchased and bound magazines.

I agree with you absolutely; if the Railway Magazine have such a thing as an online index, it would be a gross disservice of them to deny someone like you, who's been instrumental in helping keeping them going, from accessing it. I've been buying (or, initially, had bought for me) Buses Illustrated/Buses mag since 1958 without ever subscribing and have never knowingly disposed of a copy, but they chose to ignore the only communication I sent them too.

 

[Justin Smith]

I agree with you absolutely; if the Railway Magazine have such a thing as an online index, it would be a gross disservice of them to deny someone like you, who's been instrumental in helping keeping them going, from accessing it. I've been buying (or, initially, had bought for me) Buses Illustrated/Buses mag since 1958 without ever subscribing and have never knowingly disposed of a copy, but they chose to ignore the only communication I sent them too.

I agree with you, I can see no reason why they cannot let Railway Magazine subscribers have access to the index, even if they aren`t prepared to let them have access to the online content. You may almost say what is the point of buying the RWM in magazine form if, for less money, you can get the content, and access to an index to find it !