You can download the latest edition of Model Railroader Magazine from the public library systems of many cities in the U.S. and Canada, if you have a library card. It's just one of as much as 200+ mags (in some cases) you can download through the free Zinio application. This is available in Los Angeles, Queens, Edmonton, and many others. These are the instructions for the Los Angeles COUNTY Library (not City), where I live. I'm guessing the process is similar for other cities. You do NOT have to be a resident of Los Angeles. You just have to live in Southern California. You'll have to visit a branch to get a free library card:http://www.lapl.org/about-lapl/borrower-services Only the latest edition of the magazine is available but you can keep it forever and don't have to delete it. But this doesn't make you a subscriber to the Model Railroader website. (You can't access the subscriber-only features of the website.) The magazine download is located here.https://www.rbdigital.com/lapl/service/zinio/landing?q=Hobbies&mode=1 If you want to see the other magazines available, choose "All Genres" from the dropdown. P.S. If you know that your city library system has the Model Railroader download, please put it in here, so other forum members who live in your city will know.
If we all did this Model Railroader would go out of business. The price of the mag is, in part, supporting our hobby
I wouldn't worry -- the magazines are all getting a royalty for each download. It actually expands their customer base and brings extra income at the same time. Otherwise, they wouldn't be signing up for the Zinio thing. It's interesting to see that some library systems with the Zinio deal have Model Railroader, and others don't, such as Denver.
