Nope

Copy right is owned by Kalmbach and to the best of my knowledge they haven't released any of their books other then as a print copy.

Jack

Hmmm

You can make one yourself

I notice that all three editions of the book are available on Amazon, used for $7 or $8 or new for $22. If you have access to a scanner you can make your own .pdf. 

I have often thought that

I have often thought that Kalmbach should make their entire library, including out of print material, available on E-books. It would be a great resource for the hobby. I guess the questions for them would be if they could make any sizable money for the amount of work involved in scanning all that in.

I'm sure Joe could give them some advice

Kalmbach certainly has some experience with this so one must assume they do some pretty careful calculations as to how best to make money. 

I subscribe to their online library of back issues and have purchased occasional DVDs of special issues. I imagine they had to invest to get all those back issues scanned, now nearly 20 years ago I think, and I'm hoping they'll do it again now that scanner resolutions and transmission bandwidths have improved (those older scans make it hard to make out some of the finer details on some of the diagrams and drawings). 

For whatever reason, they seem to find it advantageous to keep some offerings in print only form. I doubt that the issue is the cost of scanning - I've had textbooks scanned very cheaply, the only significant cost is sacrificing a bound copy. 

Print media companies and digital

Paying the price

I would pay a premium price to be able to get some of the old out of print Kalmbach stuff in an E-book. It's probably one area where they could get away with charging more because it has value to a lot of people. I mean print copies of "Model Railroading with John Allen" still draw big sums of money on auction sites. Another one would be the "Virginian Railway by H. Reid"...as we speak (errrr type) there's a copy on E-bay priced at almost  95 bucks.

re: Paying the price

Just because someone is listing it for that price does not mean they will get it. There are two listings for the 1st edition for $135, but sold copies of the 2nd edition are in in the $15 - $35 range including shipping.

I just plucked the quickest

I just plucked the quickest example of an out of print book I could find. I have seen the John Allen book sell for hefty prices before. My point is that I would be willing to pay a decent sum for downloadable E- books of Kalmbach classics. Say 19.95 a pop? Certain ones that are hard to find, I wouldn't think twice about paying that amount for.

Trains.com

Kalmbach has mentioned posting their old books as PDFs but they only did it for a few and at the moment it’s not there.

You want an Ebook for sure because I have two copies of it I can sell the second one.

Mike

Cost and availability

Joe hit the nail on the head as to the thinking from Kalmbach, IMO.

Look at the offer for MR on the Kalmbach website.  BTW, they don't even show the print only price. $44.95 for the digital version or $49.95 for the print plus digital subscription. Not much of a delta to get a hardcopy, too. $5.00.  Hmmm.  It makes the Trains.com membership look good from that perspective.  Let us not forget that they send out "special offers" multiple times a year at $29.95 for the print version.

As for digitized books, they have more than I knew they had.  Look at  https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/catalog/digital-downloads. 4 books on operations, just not the one Meadmaker was interested in. Isn't it always that way?

I don't know about anyone else, but I like having copies that don't take up space. My model railroad magazine collection takes up 5 shelves on a 4 foot wide bookshelf; and it isn't available to me when I travel.  Then again, if you're remote, sometimes you can't get other apps, like Microsoft Office if you didn't opt to pay for a "hard" copy.

I don't think digitizing magazines, or books, should be all that expensive or difficult. I'm sure publishers hire low level employees to do such work.  Like most products, they've probably already broken way beyond even a long time ago. They know to research the market for a book before they commit to publishing it.

Yes Please.\ I would like an E-copy.

Mike,

That would be great,

How do I go about making this happen?

Thanks again,

I have two copies of the physical book.

To clarify I have two copies of the physical book one I would be willing to sell.  Somehow I misplaced my first one which magically reappeared as soon as I purchased the second one.

I don’t think an Ebook version exists.

Mike