Opinions on the quality of journalism in RAIL magazine

[anamyd]

I have no issue with RAIL magazine. It's the one I started with and the one I continue to read. What substance are you expecting @ChiefPlanner, what's wrong with a feature on their show and what comments were giving you increased blood pressure...?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I have no issue with RAIL magazine. It's the one I started with and the one I continue to read. What substance are you expecting @ChiefPlanner, what's wrong with a feature on their show and what comments were giving you increased blood pressure...?

I think you need more than a "Love in" on railway equipment and more than "general" comments on "HS2" , "Takhfartplan" etc. So much data available on say regional development and real people and customers who are the lifeblood of the rail industry.

 

[hexagon789]

Somebody actually reads what Woemar writes? This is news!

He’s a very, very poor journalist and an even worse politician.

I try not to, it's usually the same stuff again and again. Re-nationalise and/or scrap HS2, those 2 opinions are practically in ever column of his.

 

[ainsworth74]

I can't help but feel they need to wrestle control of the RAIL twitter account from Nigel Harris. He does them no favours with the way that he uses it currently...

 

[hexagon789]

I can't help but feel they need to wrestle control of the RAIL twitter account from Nigel Harris. He does them no favours with the way that he uses it currently...

Exactly, I know newspapers mostly have a particular slant on things (politically I mean(, but the same seems to be applying to many railway publications. Not all of them, some are quite varied I'm their opinions but RAIL seems to be one that's rather stuck in that respect.

I found a copy bought for me in 2005 and the general content is more interesting than in the current issues, so I wonder if it's a general decline. I believe RAIL used to be 4 weekly, it's now fortnightly which probably doesn't aid in having only generally more interesting content, every little story gets added in together with gumph to fill out the issue.

I generally just skim read the issues in the supermarket now!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I generally just skim read the issues in the supermarket now!

I think that is my future strategy - (regrettably) - reading the mag is like eating a Ryvita with no toppings , when you fancy a meal.

 

[hexagon789]

I think that is my future strategy - (regrettably) - reading the mag is like eating a Ryvita with no toppings , when you fancy a meal.

I'll buy the odd-one of other magazines, but not RAIL anymore. I have a rule - to buy an issue it has to have at least 3 full-length articles I find interesting and RAIL is just full of short, stubby scraps of news mostly.

 

[Ianno87]

I can't help but feel they need to wrestle control of the RAIL twitter account from Nigel Harris. He does them no favours with the way that he uses it currently...

He just uses it as his own personal account. Philip Haigh and Richard Clinnick are better to follow for 'industry'-type Tweets.

Exactly, I know newspapers mostly have a particular slant on things (politically I mean(, but the same seems to be applying to many railway publications. Not all of them, some are quite varied I'm their opinions but RAIL seems to be one that's rather stuck in that respect.

I found a copy bought for me in 2005 and the general content is more interesting than in the current issues, so I wonder if it's a general decline. I believe RAIL used to be 4 weekly, it's now fortnightly which probably doesn't aid in having only generally more interesting content, every little story gets added in together with gumph to fill out the issue.

I generally just skim read the issues in the supermarket now!

RAIL has been fortnightly at least since I first picked it up in 1996 (when I was in short trousers and knee-high to an 87)

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I'll buy the odd-one of other magazines, but not RAIL anymore. I have a rule - to buy an issue it has to have at least 3 full-length articles I find interesting and RAIL is just full of short, stubby scraps of news mostly.

Sums it up nicely - I stick to Modern Railways , and for nostalgia "Backtrack" - the latter has really upped its game from irrelevant reports on 19thC boiler designs , to nice meaty social and business reports from the more recent past , often superbly researched. Niche - but very good.

 

[hexagon789]

RAIL has been fortnightly at least since I first picked it up in 1996 (when I was in short trousers and knee-high to an 87)

Okay, I'm misremembering, thought it was once monthly.

 

[43096]

I can't help but feel they need to sumo wrestle control of the RAIL twitter account from Nigel Harris. He does them no favours with the way that he uses it currently...

Edited for accuracy!

 

[hexagon789]

Sums it up nicely - I stick to Modern Railways , and for nostalgia "Backtrack" - the latter has really upped its game from irrelevant reports on 19thC boiler designs , to nice meaty social and business reports from the more recent past , often superbly researched. Niche - but very good.

I tend to mix, Today's Railways, the Railway Magazine or Modern Railways. I used to buy the issues of RAIL with the timetable reviews, but they are getting later and later, other mags have them often six weeks or more before RAIL.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I tend to mix, Today's Railways, the Railway Magazine or Modern Railways. I used to buy the issues of RAIL with the timetable reviews, but they are getting later and later, other mags have them often six weeks or more before RAIL.

To be fair , old Barry's timetable reviews have always been good , fair play. I can get Railway Magazine to read in our excellent local library on a one week loan.

 

[Cowley]

Okay, I'm misremembering, thought it was once monthly.

You are right. It was certainly monthly to start with when it was called Rail Enthusiast.
It’s also where Model Rail magazine started (as a supplement), which was a real breath of fresh air if you were into model railways.
Unfortunately the magazine itself just got duller and duller over the years. The last time I bought one (because I liked the picture on the front) I regretted it fairly rapidly.
It just doesn’t pass the ‘two baths test’ for me.
In fact the bath wouldn’t even have filled by the time I threw it across the room.

 

[hexagon789]

To be fair , old Barry's timetable reviews have always been good , fair play. I can get Railway Magazine to read in our excellent local library on a one week loan.

They are the most detailed and I still look out for them and I also admire his losing battle with the NRT team over accuracy, but they are now no longer published before the timetable change itself, now often a month later.

 

[ainsworth74]

He just uses it as his own personal account. Philip Haigh and Richard Clinnick are better to follow for 'industry'-type Tweets.

Yes and that's precisely the problem! He uses it as his own account but the account name and branding are all RAIL so realisticly anything he posts is in the name of RAIL. Which just looks downright unprofessional.

Edited for accuracy!

 

[hexagon789]

You are right. It was certainly monthly to start with when it was called Rail Enthusiast.
It’s also where Model Rail magazine started (as a supplement), which was a real breath of fresh air if you were into model railways.
Unfortunately the magazine itself just got duller and duller over the years. The last time I bought one (because I liked the picture on the front) I regretted it fairly rapidly.
It just doesn’t pass the ‘two baths test’ for me.
In fact the bath wouldn’t even have filled by the time I threw it across the room.

That's it in a nutshell, it doesn't hold interest. I've always been interested in technical details and the history of railways, those are the two things that will get me to buy a copy, RAIL just doesn't really have either.

And the first issue I have is dates for a two-week period, so it seems it's always been fortnightly since I started reading them.

 

[Cowley]

@43096 - You’re going to hell for that one.
But we’re all coming with you...

 

[hexagon789]

It's just occurred to me, as The Sun is hardly a quality newspaper; could RAIL be said to be The Sun of railway journalism?

 

[anamyd]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but is RAIL magazine that bad...? I personally find it fine! And @hexagon789 RAIL must be better than The Sun because I read RAIL but not The Sun

 

[hexagon789]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but is RAIL magazine that bad...? I personally find it fine! And @hexagon789 RAIL must be better than The Sun because I read RAIL but not The Sun

I'm afraid it is really, it's just not a quality magazine really. If you like thought, no problem with that, we each like our own things, I just personally no longer find it particularly interesting.

 

[geoffk]

I used to read practically every issue of RAIL but do not bother at all these days, primarily for the reasons everyone else has stated. It just seems to have lost its bite as the years have passed.

I still buy TRUK but I think for the last three or four months I have literally skimmed through it when I have got home and that's it, it gets consigned to the shelf and I never touch them again. It was never quite the same after the sad passing of Peter Fox, but it has dropped off a cliff over the past two years, it started to turn into signal boxes and preserved lines monthly and though it has improved I think that spell obliterated what remained of my interest. Thankfully Mike Stone's excellent timetable review (far better than Barry Doe I believe) is still a fixture.

The only one I tend to bother with nowadays is Modern Rail, which has held pretty steady for as long as I have been reading it in my opinion.

Slightly off the subject, but I've found factual errors in Heritage Railway, not always confined to typos. I get the impression that being first on the shelves takes priority nowadays over accuracy. Is that fair?

 

[gaillark]

I'm disappointed with the magazine. It is very poor on proof reading with lots of spelling errors or diagrams that are not clear. I really dislike the magazine being a mouthpiece of the TOC's and the nasty political gesturing the magazine has. Mr Harris and Co should keep their political views to themselves and focus on quality journalism which it is lacking.

 

[geoffk]

Slightly off the subject, but I've found factual errors in Heritage Railway, not always confined to typos. I get the impression that being first on the shelves takes priority nowadays over accuracy. Is that fair?

"Heritage Railway" 255 contains the statement that the former Great Central Railway, now a freight line, "dissects" the [Buckinghamshire] railway centre. This should be "bisects" surely. To dissect means to analyse (a text or idea) in minute detail OR methodically to cut up (a body or plant) in order to study its internal parts. I know this thread is specifically about RAIL magazine but I can't find anywhere else to post this.

 

[Roose]

I agree with the view that it is inappropriate for a member of a magazine's staff to use a social media account, purportedly that of the magazine, to post a mixture of personal and professional items. There should be separate accounts with a clear role for each.

 

[Roose]

On more general issues, I find Barry Doe's column to be more professional of late with an apparent closer focus on his remit and fewer extended personal hobby-horse rants about his opinions on things such as catering, first class travel or advance tickets.

Richard Clinnick has appeared have borne a heavy load on the news/reporting side in recent times. The recently-reported restructuring of roles at 'Rail' may ease this apparent situation but there seems to be no possibility of addressing a perceived geographical imbalance in the team when compared with, say, that of 'Modern Railways' (although, despite that, the latter seems more strongly interested in Great Western than one might expect).

I accept that any magazine with a strong industry focus has to maintain good relationships with that industry's major businesses and organisations in order to access information, develop stories, visit sites and attend launches. Ensuring that such relationships are not affected could potentially affect objective reporting. Could the relatively uncritical reporting in the railway press of attempts by Porterbrook to create Class 769 bi-mode multiple units be a consequence of this? Similarly, in the current edition of 'Rail' there is a good user-appraisal by Pip Dunn of the Class 230 units on the Bedford to Bletchley line highlighting their positives and negatives. The article, however, fails to mention the 'elephant in the room' of the units' difficult initial reliability, which I find difficult to understand.

 

[Roger B]

In the recent article re dispensations for non-compliant vehicles. Paragraph 3 "designed to replace the compliant vehicles". Surely the new fleets are designed to replace the non-compliant vehicles? More quality from Rail

 

[gazthomas]

"Heritage Railway" 255 contains the statement that the former Great Central Railway, now a freight line, "dissects" the [Buckinghamshire] railway centre. This should be "bisects" surely. To dissect means to analyse (a text or idea) in minute detail OR methodically to cut up (a body or plant) in order to study its internal parts. I know this thread is specifically about RAIL magazine but I can't find anywhere else to post this.

I agree with the bisection and with HS2 coming along up there will there be an insurrection?

 

[jfollows]

The problem I have with RAIL is not with its editorials, because I can read and disagree with these, but with the accuracy of its content. We had pantographs dropping for neutral sections in the very first issue, an absence of wires under Steventon Bridge in the recent past, and third rail extending to Salisbury relatively recently. All of these I spotted as being wrong, but what about the other inaccuracies reported which I didn't spot?

 

[gaillark]

Every edition has errors.
To me the magazine seems to represent and is the mouthpiece of the train companies rather than being a critical friend.
Quality is getting poorer.

Can't recall ever criticism of train companies by the magazine or of the DfT.
Thinking of cancelling my subscription i. Dont like pages and pages on focusing on HS2. They should launch a new magazine called HS2. Poor journalism and obvious lack of proof reading without trying to insult proper journalists . It needs a new editor and reporters team.