Railway Bookshops

[swanhill41]

There appears to be a continuing decline/closure of railway bookshops...The latest is the Hudsons bookshop at Matlock station..Yes I know that Hudson Jnr is moving to mail order only...No retail in practice ?
Also the new books side at Howarth station on KWVR is being trimed to size,as evidenced by the 50% off sale all summer,this included Irwell and Lightmoor titles.
As a railway book collector and seller ,this to me seems part of dramatic shift of how rail book sales are moving.
To quote Strathwood,the owner has started the control of the sales process via limiting the print to each title of 1.0k units...I believe Lightmoor Pub is the same....Both major on ,on online sales not via the usual channels...Is this the continuation of the trend ?
The railway book market is going very specialist,where quality is paramount...Yes we have the low grade stuff,such as Amberley...
So it looks like its online now,via the Lightmoor model of backing onto online sellers,Strathwood direct marketing or the likes of Booklaw...But bookshops?
Thoughts.

 

[Peter C]

The loss of railway bookshops isn't and will never be a good thing.
As more and more people move to digital forms of information, such as the internet, books, and therefore bookshops, will start to close down and in the end there will be very few places which still sell railway books as a main product.
Ian Allen are closing their shop in Birmingham (I think), and therefore their only shop will be the one in Waterloo and if you can't get to Waterloo to buy books then you've got to go online. It's just a sign of the way the book publishing world is headed, really.

-Peter

 

[John Webb]

Last time I visited Embsay Station near Skipton a couple of years ago I found their bookshop had also shrunk significantly since previous visits.

Hudson's advert in the latest issue of "The Railway Magazine" still gives a mail address of "Station Yard, Matlock" - have they actually quit the station now?

 

[Albaman]

There appears to be a continuing decline/closure of railway bookshops...The latest is the Hudsons bookshop at Matlock station..Yes I know that Hudson Jnr is moving to mail order only...No retail in practice ?
Also the new books side at Howarth station on KWVR is being trimed to size,as evidenced by the 50% off sale all summer,this included Irwell and Lightmoor titles.
As a railway book collector and seller ,this to me seems part of dramatic shift of how rail book sales are moving.
To quote Strathwood,the owner has started the control of the sales process via limiting the print to each title of 1.0k units...I believe Lightmoor Pub is the same....Both major on ,on online sales not via the usual channels...Is this the continuation of the trend ?
The railway book market is going very specialist,where quality is paramount...Yes we have the low grade stuff,such as Amberley...
So it looks like its online now,via the Lightmoor model of backing onto online sellers,Strathwood direct marketing or the likes of Booklaw...But bookshops?
Thoughts.

In the West of Scotland there is a dearth of bookshops with a reasonable collection of transport and/or railway books , as far as I am aware, so it a real pleasure to visit a specialist shop such as the former Ian Allan shop in Manchester to see, first hand , what is available and peruse the contents.

I note with interest the the location for the thread starter is Fleetwood. I mention this because some of my favourite railway books are the Foxline publications by Stuart Taylor in which he details his journeys to the Fylde coast ( and other parts of Lancashire ) as part of his family holidays in the late 1950s/early 1960s. I first saw one of these books in a shop in Blackpool and, whilst the railways of the Fylde area are of particular interest to me, I am not sure if I would have started to buy them had I not had the opportunity to look through one first. To go off topic briefly, there was a mention in "Scenes from the Past :26 ( Part Five )" published in 2005 that there would a further edition but I fear this will not now appear.

Others are better qualified to comment on the viability , or otherwise of a traditional bookshop concentrating on railway publications, but, perhaps, the best we can hope for would be something similar to " Bookends " in Carlisle where there is a section with only newly published railway books ( albeit limited depending on whether a publisher supplies that particular shop ) and also a second hand section in a different part of the premises.

 

[36270k]

Treasure Chest books in Felixstowe has an excellent Railway section both new and used.

 

[swanhill41]

ERROR....

 

[swanhill41]

Last time I visited Embsay Station near Skipton a couple of years ago I found their bookshop had also shrunk significantly since previous visits.

Hudson's advert in the latest issue of "The Railway Magazine" still gives a mail address of "Station Yard, Matlock" - have they actually quit the station now?

Details on Hudsons location on their website...No longer at station.
Embsay....In comparison to 10 years ago,just playing at it...Frankly I find volunteers in shop very unenthusiastic !

 

[swanhill41]

Treasure Chest books in Felixstowe has an excellent Railway section both new and used.

They are certainly very good when it comes to high quality S/H railway books....

 

[Journeyman]

I absolutely loved The Smokebox in Kingston when I was a kid, but I think it's long gone.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Yes, a real shame for the older farts like me...

The ones I remember well were Lens of Sutton (in Carshalton) and The Smokebox, Kingston - both long gone

 

[Merthyr Imp]

I think Robert Humm at Stamford is still going although no longer in the station building.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I think Robert Humm at Stamford is still going although no longer in the station building.

They are; they're a short distance away from the station now.

The most ironic thing about all this move to online shopping is that Platform 5 don't have either a physical shop or an online function; it's still old style mail order only. They've been saying for five or six years now that an online function will be available "shortly".

 

[Peter C]

They are; they're a short distance away from the station now.

The most ironic thing about all this move to online shopping is that Platform 5 don't have either a physical shop or an online function; it's still old style mail order only. They've been saying for five or six years now that an online function will be available "shortly".

The phrase "The next train to arrive at Platform 5 is the online function service to the future" came to mind when I read that last bit!

-Peter

 

[swanhill41]

Yes, a real shame for the older farts like me...

The ones I remember well were Lens of Sutton (in Carshalton) and The Smokebox, Kingston - both long gone

I think the word/phrase "old farts" sums it up....I am an old fart and know that the old farts are not the big buyers of new rail books now.