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RAIL magazine

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SteveM70

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That’s another thing. The front cover is the same as the inside pages, rather than thicker. Wonder if it’s a cost saving measure
 
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Ianno87

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One of my other problems with Rail is the writing style - some of the writing comes across as very "noddy", almost simplistic.

Although that (perhaps unintentionally) does make it more accessible to a younger readership getting into specialist rail publications for the first time.
 

Journeyman

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Although that (perhaps unintentionally) does make it more accessible to a younger readership getting into specialist rail publications for the first time.
There has always been that variety. Does anyone remember Modern Railways Pictorial, which later morphed into Motive Power Monthly? I found these much more accessible than MR when I was a kid, and it did a good job of highlighting interesting stuff I hadn't seen in person.
 

irish_rail

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I feel the only way of sorting the magazine out would be axing the editior. Get someone else in , Pip Dun perhaps, as others have mentioned, he wrote fairly interesting pieces.
And focus on the day to day, the opinions and experiences, and fleets.
 

Sprinter107

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There has always been that variety. Does anyone remember Modern Railways Pictorial, which later morphed into Motive Power Monthly? I found these much more accessible than MR when I was a kid, and it did a good job of highlighting interesting stuff I hadn't seen in person.
Yes, i remember that. I used buy it out of my pocket money as a kid. Good magazine was that.
 

Journeyman

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Yes, i remember that. I used buy it out of my pocket money as a kid. Good magazine was that.
If you wanted a feel for what was going on around the network, with some good photography, it was great. I only got into MR's quite lengthy articles later on.
 

ChilternTurbo

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I think another issue and a challenge for printed news media is the fact that some much information is available through the likes of twitter and of course forums such as this.
I feel the only way of sorting the magazine out would be axing the editior. Get someone else in , Pip Dun perhaps, as others have mentioned, he wrote fairly interesting pieces.
And focus on the day to day, the opinions and experiences, and fleets.
I totally agree. Rail in it's current form for me just feels tired and in need of a re-fresh. Perhaps as a railway enthusiast, rather than someone working in the industry itself, I'm no longer the target demographic?
 

Ashley Hill

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There has always been that variety. Does anyone remember Modern Railways Pictorial, which later morphed into Motive Power Monthly? I found these much more accessible than MR when I was a kid, and it did a good job of highlighting interesting stuff I hadn't seen in person.
Yes,have a full set of MRP in the loft. Still have a flick through them now and again when mooching around up there.
 

irish_rail

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I think another issue and a challenge for printed news media is the fact that some much information is available through the likes of twitter and of course forums such as this.

I totally agree. Rail in it's current form for me just feels tired and in need of a re-fresh. Perhaps as a railway enthusiast, rather than someone working in the industry itself, I'm no longer the target demographic?
I work in the industry but feel the same. Maybe its only aimed at managers in the industry now....seriously reducing its target audience. I mean who on earth cares that Joe Bloggs has been appointed marketing manager for XYZ Rail. Rail is full of little snippets like this that are of zero interest to 99 percent of readers.
 

ExRes

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I work in the industry but feel the same. Maybe its only aimed at managers in the industry now....seriously reducing its target audience. I mean who on earth cares that Joe Bloggs has been appointed marketing manager for XYZ Rail. Rail is full of little snippets like this that are of zero interest to 99 percent of readers.

Amusingly there is actually an XYZ Rail, formerly known as Stobart Rail

I bought a copy of Rail a couple of months back for the first time in over a year, I won't be bothering again
 

55002

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I have god knows how many Rail magazines in the loft from when they first came out in 81 I think.. nowadays I’d highly recommend a subscription to Readly, £7.99 month..get absolutely loads of magazines on there to read digitally
 

Trackman

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I have god knows how many Rail magazines in the loft from when they first came out in 81 I think.. nowadays I’d highly recommend a subscription to Readly, £7.99 month..get absolutely loads of magazines on there to read digitally
I use the local council online library.
Once you are registered you have access to loads of online magazines including railway ones and even the likes of Viz.
I’ll have a look today to see if it has RAIL, I’ve not read it in years.
 

deltic

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I gave up about five years ago. Just became too clear that they were aiming to be the mouthpiece for the industry, I imagine their business model is now dependant upon industry funding, particularly when they were running the Rail business events. I think once you're in the industry you can see through the propaganda. Funnily enough, I was blocked by Mr Harris for suggesting that Rail was too on-message with the industry. The most amusing thing is when this subject comes up in messrooms amongst the enthusiast sect, it's amazing how many train crew Mr Harris has blocked from seeing his/Rail's tweets!

Modern Railways is far superior. Analysis that reflects what you can believe and understand from within the industry rather than what the industry is comfortable with the public seeing. Deeper news coverage. Plus, you can get great diagrams, maps and pictures.
I am glad I'm not the only one to be blocked by Mr Harris, in my case after I had the audacity to question one of his over optimistic claims on re-opening a rail link.
 

87electric

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I can accept that diversity of age could be beneficial to try and prevent too much "what BR used to do" but I fail to see why gender or skin colour are being implied as negative attributes? These kind of sexist/racist comments shouldn't be tolerated here.
YOU can accept ageism it seems. I don’t. So I don’t agree with you on your ageist comment.
 

birchesgreen

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There has always been that variety. Does anyone remember Modern Railways Pictorial, which later morphed into Motive Power Monthly? I found these much more accessible than MR when I was a kid, and it did a good job of highlighting interesting stuff I hadn't seen in person.

That takes me back, when I started out on the dark path of rail enthusiasm as a youth, MRP was my magazine of choice.
 

43096

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I work in the industry but feel the same. Maybe its only aimed at managers in the industry now....seriously reducing its target audience. I mean who on earth cares that Joe Bloggs has been appointed marketing manager for XYZ Rail. Rail is full of little snippets like this that are of zero interest to 99 percent of readers.
But you'd think that managers in the rail industry would read Modern Railways as their "first choice". I am genuinely baffled as to who actually buys Rail.
 

bspahh

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d9009alycidon

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Used to subscribe to "Modern Railways" many, many years ago and converted to "Rail Enthusiast" as MR had become to industry-centric and had dropped or condensed most of the enthusiast friendly information. At that time "Rail Enthusiast" was packed full of sightings, interesting data on stock etc, then it dropped "Enthusiast" and actually become more like "Modern Railways" so I stopped buying it around then.
It is interesting to go back and see it in its heyday, the online archive is here... Rail Enthusiast Scanned Archive beware, you might not get must done for the rest of the day! :D
 

DarloRich

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With RAIL People need to remember that they aren't an enthusiasts magazine. If that is what you expect you will always be disappointed. it is a trade magazine devoted to trade news.
 

d9009alycidon

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Actually a good question is "is there a place for a magazine aimed a the enthusiast of the current system?" Nowadays every slightly out of course working is pretty much known in advance, then spotted, photted and analysed on-line by various forums, Tracksy, Railcam etc, etc, by the time it reached a printed magazine it would be old news
 

ExRes

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Used to subscribe to "Modern Railways" many, many years ago and converted to "Rail Enthusiast" as MR had become to industry-centric and had dropped or condensed most of the enthusiast friendly information. At that time "Rail Enthusiast" was packed full of sightings, interesting data on stock etc, then it dropped "Enthusiast" and actually become more like "Modern Railways" so I stopped buying it around then.
It is interesting to go back and see it in its heyday, the online archive is here... Rail Enthusiast Scanned Archive beware, you might not get must done for the rest of the day! :D

Great link to the online archive, thanks very much
 

Mag_seven

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With RAIL People need to remember that they aren't an enthusiasts magazine. If that is what you expect you will always be disappointed. it is a trade magazine devoted to trade news.

As @d9009alycidon has indicated it was an enthusiast magazine back in the day. It morphed out of "Rail Enthusiast".
 
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