Rail: Then and now…

It was all my best friend at high school, Greg's fault. We met in Design and Technology when we were all put in non-form ‘classes’ and we shared a bench making clocks, if I recall. I was doing a HST, and memory serves he was doing a BR logo and with that 'introduction made' we became good friends from then on...

Greg had amassed a massive collection of the bi-monthly Rail magazine. As we progressed through high school he kept collecting every issue, even beginning an incredible documentation of all the photos in each issue so you could find locomotives using his index! A pre-internet Flickr search! I bought the odd magazine but was never a regular but my first one was 195 - I re-bought it second hand last year when I got the Dapol N gauge class 26. Recently, I had a few hours to kill in Chester and picked up a new example of this old friend and I was somewhat disappointed. I am use to Railway, Rail Express, Railways Illustrated etc, and their formats - all readable and interesting but without the depth and breadth of material I sued to find in Rail. Well what do I find? No breadth - but plenty of fairly 'right*' depth! No updates on locomotives, movements, openings and closures, not much on freight at all - pricey too, for what is basically news print. 

The problem is, none of the 'news-stand' magazines have the right balance anymore. Scared by the 'always ready' internet, a lot of what I bought these for in the past has been duplicated - perhaps what is missing is a 'thinking mans' Railway magazine - fairly politically neutral, forward thinking, nice paper, great imagery, a little sprinkling of nostalgia (but no steam)... if you think you know what I'm looking for by all means let me know. In the meantime I'll hold onto the treasured 195, but today's Rail is already in the recycling. 

Until next time, more soon...

(* apologies for the political terminology, but right in relation to my own position)

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