I am posting this here because maybe one of you is close to Trains editorial staff? Am I the only one completely unsatisfied with Trains's website since the revision last year? I really no longer go to it frequently, it is so weak. It is no longer a first choice for news access.

I don't know any other leading newspaper or news source that fills their "front page" with a sales pitch for a subscription. And this view has not changed in at least a half year.

I'm really pissed at Trains generally. My 2-year subscription was stopped by the PO after forwarding just one copy when we moved and I didn't inform Trains or me. My fault there. I've tried for 2 months and so far 4 phone calls to get it restarted with no luck. What's going on with them? I note that their address is now Texas? I've been a reader since the '50's but will NEVER get another subscription. They have you at their mercy. I think they are in trouble financially and no wonder: look at the size of their staff! Cast of thousands when once AC Kalmbach and DP Morgan pretty much did it themselves.
Ned

I dropped Trains a long time ago. (I could flip through it at the local hobby shop and would buy it if good) Usually full of contemporary stuff which isn't my interest.
I recently dropped Model Railroader. Skinny issues, mostly beginner oriented. That's fine, but not my cup of tea.
I do still subscribe to Classic Trains and order special issues if they are steam oriented.
Now that I'm old, it takes more to get me interested.
And I agree, the Trains.com business sucks.
Your mileage may vary.

Although I may share the frustrations with the redesigned website, here is the reality:

1) "I don't know any other leading newspaper or news source that fills their "front page" with a sales pitch for a subscription."
You aren't looking. That pretty much standard now, either at the top or with a pop-up ad. I have to research news stories across the nation, and paywalls and adverts like this are the norm almost everywhere.

2) "I think they are in trouble financially and no wonder: look at the size of their staff! Cast of thousands when once AC Kalmbach and DP Morgan pretty much did it themselves."
Like HELL they did.
They had everyone from sub-editors (Rosemary Entringer) to a librarian (George Drury), books editors, graphics artists, accountants, actual press operators in the early days, advertising sales departments, etc. You just didn't see much of them--and that's the way it should be.
The trick is that many of these people, then and now, wear multiple hats. Accountants deal with every magazine from Bead & Button to MR to Astronomy.

3) Magazines of ALL sorts have been in massive trouble since about 2000. Go find Playboy. Or Maxim. They couldn't even sell with sex. (The entire porn industry and distribution model that kept organized crime alive for decades has also been killed off, too!)

Tragically for the enthusiasts, magazines and newspapers (and even TV and radio news) HAVE to be thought of as a business that sells advertising, and attracts people to those ads with the content between the ads. Forget all the rubbish you may have heard of journalism being some "noble profession;" it's a sales game.
The fact remains that ad revenues for magazines of ALL sorts has plummeted, with the POSSIBLE exception of fashion magazines selling overpriced clothes, makeup, and hair products.
Remember the days of classified ads in newspapers and in the back pages of Model Railroader and Trains? Those were major revenue for those publications. They're all but extinct now--everybody's shifted to Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, etc. The same goes for small cottage industries that used to HAVE to advertise in MR or Railroad Model Craftsman to get any sales. Even the old "hobby shops" are largely gone, closed when the owner retired and replaced with an online sales warehouse.
The entire magazine industry is in travail. Where are the newstands and big book stores where you could get all sorts of magazines on impulse, like that occasional special issue of Classic Trains on the PRR or Passenger Train Journal on the SP, or even British magazines in the better shops? They're gone, replaced by the populist magazine selections at WalMart, Target, and grocery stores.

The magazines that have survived this brutal attrition process have largely done so by being/becoming essentially "wh*res" to the industries they write about. As an example, the auto enthusiasts I know have all, always regarded Road & Track Magazine as a bunch of s*ck-ups to the auto industry advertisers, while Car & Driver was regarded as having an antagonistic, sarcastic, independent streak. Meanwhile, it's become virtually impossible to make money in the business as a freelance writer or photographer. Some magazines still pay decent money for photography (considering film no longer costs $20 a roll to buy and process), but the number of actual photos has declined sharply--Trains no longer has its "Railroad News Photos," which was a great way for beginners to get a start.

One corporate problem with Kalmbach is that, as part of its attempt to appeal to the industry/advertising side, they have shifted to a "theme" for each month, seemingly inviolate now. April is the "Special Short Line and Regional Issue" (says so right across the top of the cover); May is the "annual preservation issue" because they sell listings in the tourist guide insert for the coming summer tourist season. Doesn't matter that May 1 was the 50th anniversary of Amtrak. DPM or Ingles would have cranked out a special 50th anniversary issue on Amtrak; this year they couldn't be bothered. Railfan & Railroad did what amounted to an "All-Amtrak issue," but it was mostly about new and upcoming developments--no retrospective history.

I humbly suggest that any consternation directed at TRAINS be split into two categories: recent and systemic. I say that because the magazine staff has been deeply impacted by Editor Wrinn’s battle with cancer. I think they are doing a pretty good job, all things considered. Hopefully, Jim’s treatment will work and he will get back in the saddle. I’ve had no systemic issues in my 40+ years as a TRAINS subscriber but I respect that YMMV.- Rob

Trains has always floated on a line of is this a hobby magazine or wanna-be industry magazine.

Model Railroad has come under intense scrutiny from the younger generation as they operate VERY set in their own ways, and always default to a dozen or so individuals in the "Kalmbach club" month, after month, after month.

White River has done amazing things with their magazines in the last 2 years, and are fantastic people to work with, and they also like to embrace the younger crowd, and understand not everyone is into JUST steam era railroading now..

1) But I am a paid subscriber to Trains - why am I seeing this (go back and look at my screenshot).

2) I subscribe to 2-3 American online news sources an 2 Danish news sources - they have actual news stories at the top of their webpage.

3) Just now, I went to sources I do not subscribe to. They have actual news at the top of their pages.

https://railfan.com/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/

https://rrmodelcraftsman.com/

I can say that there have been numerous complaints with Trains' website over whether or not paid "premium" content and/or "subscriber-only" content is coming through for those with confirmed subscriptions. These are apparently glitches in their recognition of accounts.

I'm one of them, and every once in a while I get the "you have X# of stories remaining" notice even though I'm supposed to have access as a subscriber.

The recent update is apparently that they are going to lock SOME features behind a "premium subscription" fee--supposedly access to all past stories, an online index, and/or the daily news updates, or whatnot..

Just as a test, I checked Trains.com .

It says "Hello, Alexander" up where yours asked to "Sign in". So it recognized my account/subscription.

Just for larks, I tried the "Join" red button to see what happened.

It took me to the page offering me a 30-day free trial of the "Unlimited Digital Membership" and listing the benefits.

My antivirus promptly popped up, reporting "We've safely aborted connection at Trains.com because it was infected with Script:SNH-gen (Trj)"

"This is a Trojan virus that pretends to be something else to trick you into running it and infecting your computer," according to AVG Antivirus.

Someone should contact Kalmbach's tech support on Monday morning............

I don't have a gripe with Trains' content, my gripe is not getting what I've paid for. I'm not getting the magazine even after 4 calls (only 4 because each time I'm told it takes 4-6 weeks to get it going again, so I've waited to see what happens. When nothing does I call again) in almost 3 months. I completely understand that magazines are under stress and frankly that's one reason why I renewed my subscription. I like reading from paper.
To Sandy's comments: I dug out my copy of the July 1958 MR (scratched, torn taped together, printed long before Sandy or many others here were a gleam in their old man's eye I'm sure) and noted that the editor was Paul Larson, a talented model railroader and frequent writer and photographer of MR articles (his Mineral Point and Northern was an early fav of mine), Other authors in that issue include Linn Westcott, Al Kamm, Gordon Odegard, and Don Rescheberg. AC Kalmbach often appeared in ads. My point: lots of staff was "dual-hatted". Today there are 13 people in Kalmbach Media, lots of VP's, another layer of management none dual hatted. Cody Grivno and David Popp bravely hang on along with Tony, Pelle, Larry and Lou.
Ned

They actually pay for actual journalists such as Bob Johnston, which is somewhat rare today, and they also collect news and present it in a way the sorts through a lot of the clutter. I'm not sure how much they were dependent on small ads in the back that these days you can put on ebay essentially for free until you sell something. I was told that what drove the Rocky Mountain News (1 of 2 papers in Denver until 2009) out of business was when the small ads in the back, those little ads ($20 or so for three lines for two weeks)were virtually wiped out by craigslist's free ads. Apparently they had a surprising impact on the bottom line, and I'll bet Trains has lost money from them, too.

My only complaint as a subscriber is that when you log on for premium content it won't autfill your user name and password, but instead you must type them in each time. I actually talked to someone in their office at least ten years ago about it because I was just curious but it never was fixed, I'm not sure if it is a glitch due to older software or some sort of security measure.

Decades ago (maybe even in the David P. Morgan era) Trains Mag acknowledged that copies of the magazine ended up on desks of mid and upper management people at some of the railroads.

I an a long-time subscriber to Trains Mag and no compulsion to change. My purchases and then subscriptions go back more than 50 years.

Yes, the new format of the News Wire is awkward compared to before the recent change.

The various problems with the Kambach websites have been a running joke on their forums for years. This is just the latest episode.

Sandy,

I got a similar message to yours and notified Trainsmagazine.info. I typed in the address from a print magazine to avoid opening their website.

Trains acknowledged receipt.

Phil Mulligan

They do seem exceptionally good at sending daily requests for me to re-subscribe. Considering I'm about a month into this year's subscription it seems a tad early. Either that or they need the money, which in Covid-19 times might be true...