Nostalgia & History > Trains Magazine from 1947 - 1959

SCORE! My sister-in-laws boyfriend just gave me 17 issues of TRAINS magazine spanning the years of 1947 - 1959! The advertisements are OUTSTANDING! So many railroads! So many interesting items!!!

Paul Liddiard
Spanish Fork, UT

And look at the subscription portion at the front. Lifetime subscriptions. In the sixties it was twenty five dollars for life! Now THAT brings a tear to my eyes.
JB

What did they think life expectancy was back then, about 30 years? Still a bargain.

3rdswitch Wrote:
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> And look at the subscription portion at the front.
> Lifetime subscriptions. In the sixties it was
> twenty five dollars for life! Now THAT brings a
> tear to my eyes.
> JB


You can't get 4 issues of it now for that price!

patd3985 Wrote:
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> You can't get 4 issues of it now for that price!

We should all be thankful that the magazine is still in print. Someday soon, it will probably go online only and then it will just fade away.

I'm of two minds in the print vs pdf argument. I own 80% of Trains run in print and (0% in pdf). Yet, I enjoy having magazines and my railfan's timetable in .pdf on my iPhone. I have some non-rail magazines on there, too ... but an iPhone 4 screen is a bit small for casual reading. It might be fun to have Trains DVD someday. It'd make a great index for my dead tree editions.

* JB *

Streamliner Wrote:
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> We should all be thankful that the magazine is
> still in print. Someday soon, it will probably go
> online only and then it will just fade away.

Streamliner Wrote:
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> We should all be thankful that the magazine is
> still in print. Someday soon, it will probably go
> online only and then it will just fade away.

It strange that you mention this. In the most recent issue of Trains, it is stated that Trains Magazine is now Klambach's most profitable magazine and that subscriptions are now slowly increasing and years of decline. It goes on to state that in the past, especially the 1960's and 1970's that the magazine barely broke even and it was considered a miracle that each issue was actually finished and printed.

It possible that it will go on-line only someday, but its entirely possible everything will. Will it fade off into history like the steam engine? I don't know, but it wouldn't die without a fight, thats for sure.

My first TRAINS Mag was November, 1940.
Cover price $0.15--I was 11 years old.
Time flies!!


bob Drenk

theres some place on the internet you can go & find out how many people subscribe to various magazines. Trains was over 90,000. So theyll probably bee around until tomorrow!