RAIL magazine

[bramling]

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.

Which it doesn’t seem to do very well either!

 

[DarloRich]

And I'm not sure it's doing a very good job of being that either...

Which it doesn’t seem to do very well either!

No idea - i only read the complimentary copy in the office

 

[Tubeboy]

I stopped reading Rail soon after Nigel Harris took over.

 

[Journeyman]

I stopped reading Rail soon after Nigel Harris took over.

I've noticed he seems to voice far more support for the current setup of the railway than any other editors, i.e. he's constantly opposed renationalisation, and defended even the most unpopular private operators. I don't have a major issue with that, but I can see why some people do.

 

[greatvoyager]

A few years ago I had a quick look through a copy of RAIL in WHSmith and after the first page I put it down, as it didn’t evoke my interest.

 

[ChilternTurbo]

According to his twitter, Richard Clinnick (Head of News) is leaving Rail for pastures new... I wish him well, his twitter feed is always an interesting way to keep up with developments on the UK rail scene.

 

[43096]

According to his twitter, Richard Clinnick (Head of News) is leaving Rail for pastures new... I wish him well, his twitter feed is always an interesting way to keep up with developments on the UK rail scene.

It's a chance for Rail to recruit someone who has higher standards.

 

[Ianno87]

It's a chance for Rail to recruit someone who has higher standards.

Bit harsh (and in my view very unfair). He does (very respectably) openly Tweet about his mental health struggles, so I hope he doesn't see that comment of yours.

 

[43096]

Bit harsh (and in my view very unfair). He does (very respectably) openly Tweet about his mental health struggles, so I hope he doesn't see that comment of yours.

It's a comment on his competence in his job. Nothing else. Quite why you feel the need to bring his personal life into, I don't know - it says more about you than anything else.

 

[Girlonrail]

Indeed and I find it rather odd that the magazine as a whole doesn't run a separate Twitter account as it's fair to say some of his tweets are pretty odd.

I'll scan it at newsagents but won't buy it unless a few articles really grab me, which is rare.

Couldn’t agree more! A branded Twitter page sharing things of irrelevance to the mag branding! But his pushback is “it’s art”

It's a chance for Rail to recruit someone

Bit harsh (and in my view very unfair). He does (very respectably) openly Tweet about his mental health struggles, so I hope he doesn't see that comment of yours.

I’m sure

It's a comment on his competence in his job. Nothing else. Quite why you feel the need to bring his personal life into, I don't know - it says more about you than anything else.

Competence in his job? Are you an expert on journalism?

 

[greatvoyager]

According to his twitter, Richard Clinnick (Head of News) is leaving Rail for pastures new... I wish him well, his twitter feed is always an interesting way to keep up with developments on the UK rail scene.

I wonder whether this will change much of the magazine going forward.

 

[43096]

Competence in his job? Are you an expert on journalism?

I'm more than capable of reading, and I know enough about subjects he's written on to realise that his output isn't great.

 

[GW4117]

It's only the front cover ink which tends to come off.

The magazine has always arrived in good condition.

I do find the paper thickness to be an issue.
I'm always nervous reading the first few, or the last few pages of the magazine, for fear of the pages ripping.
Plus sometimes issues with the middle staples not being sturdy enough.

 

[greatvoyager]

I do find the paper thickness to be an issue.
I'm always nervous reading the first few, or the last few pages of the magazine, for fear of the pages ripping.
Plus sometimes issues with the middle staples not being sturdy enough.

I always used to find that the top staple would be loose.

 

[irish_rail]

So, true to my word I persevered and havent bought latest edition of Rail. I thought id get Todays Railways instead. When the lady in WHSmith said that will be £5.95 I had to query it. Surely not, but yes that was correct. Basically 6 quid for a mag that is OK, but nothing special . Can't help but feel the worlds gone mad, I really should stick to the Internet and not printed word.....

 

[Sprinter107]

So, true to my word I persevered and havent bought latest edition of Rail. I thought id get Todays Railways instead. When the lady in WHSmith said that will be £5.95 I had to query it. Surely not, but yes that was correct. Basically 6 quid for a mag that is OK, but nothing special . Can't help but feel the worlds gone mad, I really should stick to the Internet and not printed word.....

Caught me out too when I bought this months copy of Today's Railways. Usually get it every month, but now its got to the £6 mark, I'll have to be more selective and only buy it when there is really something in it that I want to read.

 

[STINT47]

So, true to my word I persevered and havent bought latest edition of Rail. I thought id get Todays Railways instead. When the lady in WHSmith said that will be £5.95 I had to query it. Surely not, but yes that was correct. Basically 6 quid for a mag that is OK, but nothing special . Can't help but feel the worlds gone mad, I really should stick to the Internet and not printed word.....

I was the same. Purchased Today's Railways and got a shock with the new higher price. On reading through it the magazine is ok and I like it but it's not one that is a must buy for me. I guess the price needs to increase to make print profitable but it could reduce circulation.

 

[whoosh]

Anyone bother with 'RailNews'?

A few quite good main articles but a lot of it reads like ToC PR releases.

I've just cancelled my subscription. To echo other comments in this thread, I found it had become a rather self-congratulatory industry publication and I was finding I would skim through it in about 15 minutes.

The trouble with Rail is that it's no longer a magazine aimed solely at the enthusiast. Each peice seems to be accompanied by a picture of some grinning railway manager,angry politician or official publicity shot.
Railnews was mentioned above,that's no better. That's just a back slapping newspaper for middle management. It bears no meaning to the average railway(wo)man on the ground.

A few years ago RAIL seemed to be a never-ending photoshoot of railway managers at lecturns probably saying something they thought was important, or shaking hands with someone as they'd won an industry award. Literally pages and pages of it. There seemed to be more of these photos than photos of trains!
I don't look at it much these days.

As for Railnews, the industry newspaper, I don't find it too bad, but do see your point. Have you ever seen the newspaper Railstaff though? I've not seen one for a while, so don't know if it's still around - Goodness me, if you think Railnews is out of touch with the front line and back-slapping the management, you ain't seen nothing! An absolutely dire, puffed up, unpalatable, self-congratulatory waste of (really horribly difficult to prise apart) paper. And that's being nice.

 

[Neptune]

As another issue 1 person for Rail (Enthusiast) I can safely say that it is nowadays a rotten to the core tabloid journal. I stopped getting it 20 years ago due to many of the issues raised previously on here.

A couple of years ago I got readly and saw that Rail was there so for the first time in years had a read. It’s got even worse. I do however have a flick through most issues (as I consider it free so why not).

It’s like the Sun of railway mags.

Sensationalism to grab the attention of the casual believer, lectures on why we must agree with everything they say, letters from ‘disgusted of Woking’, news that is inaccurate to say the least, pictures of yet another hardhat toting manager who is ‘the future of the industry’ (and has probably quietly left the industry a couple of years later because they mucked up) and apparently lots of controversy on Twitter (I don’t do social media so wouldn’t know personally). Anti union rants, anti, anti HS2 rants, anti staff rants. Whatever happened to neutrality.

There is nothing for anyone in there. As said, the enthusiast element was dropped in the 90’s and the industry stuff doesn’t appeal (certainly not to us in the industry). It basically has become a mouthpiece for HS2 as well. Every issue is HS2 heavy. Why? Do they have shares in it or is it because they are all ardent supporters of it so they need to tell the opponents or even the indifferent people like me why they’re wrong and the magazine staff are right.

It’s an awful mag now and if it wasn’t on readly I wouldn’t give it a second look.

 

[ExRes]

So, true to my word I persevered and havent bought latest edition of Rail. I thought id get Todays Railways instead. When the lady in WHSmith said that will be £5.95 I had to query it. Surely not, but yes that was correct. Basically 6 quid for a mag that is OK, but nothing special . Can't help but feel the worlds gone mad, I really should stick to the Internet and not printed word.....

Like so many things the internet has made the magazines and newspapers we traditionally bought pretty much pointless, one thing to mention of course is that a 12 month subscription to TR is advertised at £46.80, which makes the cost of print a bit more palatable

 

[ainsworth74]

A few years ago RAIL seemed to be a never-ending photoshoot of railway managers at lecturns probably saying something they thought was important, or shaking hands with someone as they'd won an industry award. Literally pages and pages of it. There seemed to be more of these photos than photos of trains!
I don't look at it much these days.

I'm not one to defend RAIL (see my comments on this thread and others!) but are you sure you didn't pick up the issue where they cover the National Rail Awards where such content might be expected to feature

 

[whoosh]

I'm not one to defend RAIL (see my comments on this thread and others!) but are you sure you didn't pick up the issue where they cover the National Rail Awards where such content might be expected to feature

Ha ha!
Hmm..... could be! You've probably got a point!

I think it was actually, but why the need for pages and pages of it? I get picking out highlights, such as something innovative, or a trial of something away from the public eye that's worked and made things more reliable for instance; that's newsworthy and could be interesting to a layman even - you don't have to even be interested in trains and the railway
necessarily for that - but countless photos of people at lecturns? Yawn!
In fact I would say the above approach of picking out highlights is more like Railnews which is a publication specifically for the industry, and not a magazine that's trying sell itself off the shelves of Smiths.

 

[ABB125]

So, true to my word I persevered and havent bought latest edition of Rail. I thought id get Todays Railways instead. When the lady in WHSmith said that will be £5.95 I had to query it. Surely not, but yes that was correct. Basically 6 quid for a mag that is OK, but nothing special . Can't help but feel the worlds gone mad, I really should stick to the Internet and not printed word.....

Caught me out too when I bought this months copy of Today's Railways. Usually get it every month, but now its got to the £6 mark, I'll have to be more selective and only buy it when there is really something in it that I want to read.

I was the same. Purchased Today's Railways and got a shock with the new higher price. On reading through it the magazine is ok and I like it but it's not one that is a must buy for me. I guess the price needs to increase to make print profitable but it could reduce circulation.

The cover price has recently increased, but it's still less than £4 per copy if you have a subscription. (Apparently it's stayed this price for about a decade; it's certainly been £46.80 for the year for the six(?) years I've had a subscription.) If you buy 8 or more copies per year, a subscription is the cheapest option.

 

[507021]

Almost a year ago, I bought a copy of RAIL and Steam Railway for a friend of my Mum's who was in hospital and waiting for his tablet to be delivered.

I decided to have a read of them before dropping them off, and felt RAIL was pretty poor value. As someone who isn't really into steam trains, I thought Steam Railway was definitely the better and more interesting magazine.

 

[SteveM70]

The back issues of Rail Enthusiast that someone shared a link to upthread are instructive as to what’s missing from the current magazine. Of course the railway was far more varied then, but the articles were genuinely interesting - cab rides, “how it works” features etc etc. Even in today’s blander railway landscape there’d still be space for stuff like this, but I wonder whether it’s even possible (should Lord Harris deem it a good idea) to do stuff like this with industry PR types making it nothing more than unpaid advertorial.

 

[Ashley Hill]

For a while Traction filled the void for me and even had David Maxey in early editions. Sadly that magazine too is a shadow of its former self. Still leaps and bounds better than Rail though!

 

[irish_rail]

The back issues of Rail Enthusiast that someone shared a link to upthread are instructive as to what’s missing from the current magazine. Of course the railway was far more varied then, but the articles were genuinely interesting - cab rides, “how it works” features etc etc. Even in today’s blander railway landscape there’d still be space for stuff like this, but I wonder whether it’s even possible (should Lord Harris deem it a good idea) to do stuff like this with industry PR types making it nothing more than unpaid advertorial.

I agree with this. Cab ride features are always interesting even to those of us who do it as a day job. Yet I can't remember such a feature in Rail in recent years other than the occasional interview with a young female driver just to show how "woke" the magazine is.

And the HS2 obsession really is boring. The patronising way it is shoved down the readers throat as a good thing really miffs me. They do like to patronise anybody who's view happens to be anti hs2.

 

[py_megapixel]

HS2 has huge flaws, but also huge benefits, and those all require(d) consideration. But in my opinion, the HS2 ship sailed long ago (and, of course, the first HS2 trains will be on their journeys too in less than two decades, that's the entire point ), so no magazine really be should be fixating on it any more when there are many more important things they could focus on.

 

[irish_rail]

HS2 has huge flaws, but also huge benefits, and those all require(d) consideration. But in my opinion, the HS2 ship sailed long ago (and, of course, the first HS2 trains will be on their journeys too in less than two decades, that's the entire point ), so no magazine really be should be fixating on it any more when there are many more important things they could focus on.

Correct. Hs2 MAY be important (not in my opinion but may be worthwhile, time will tell) but as you say there are issues far more pertinent to the current railway than HS2 and Rail seems to forget that!

 

[greatvoyager]

HS2 has huge flaws, but also huge benefits, and those all require(d) consideration. But in my opinion, the HS2 ship sailed long ago (and, of course, the first HS2 trains will be on their journeys too in less than two decades, that's the entire point ), so no magazine really be should be fixating on it any more when there are many more important things they could focus on.

This is my biggest problem with RAIL, it gives lots of attention to a few stories and other stuff isn’t mentioned.