UK Railway Magazines

[dangie]

Still new to the forum.
Short of standing in WH Smiths and reading every magazine on the shelf, can anyone recommend a magazine for someone (me) who's just restarted his interest in railways.
Thanks

 

[yorkie]

Impossible to say without knowing what your areas of interest are. Even then, a quick read at the shelf of W H Smith may be a good idea, no need to read much to get a rough idea...

But if you can say what your areas of interest are we can give you an idea.

You may also be interested to read this thread: Railway Magazines from 5 months ago.

 

[YorkshireBear]

was about to link you to that thread.

 

[dangie]

Thanks for the replies. Having just rekindled my interest, I'm after the magazine that gives the broadest picture of UK railways. My favourite magazine of years ago was "Rail Enthusiast" if I remember correctly. Is this magazine still going or is there something similar under a different name?

 

[theblackwatch]

'Rail Enthusiast' as was became 'Rail' which is now more of an industry magazine with a much smaller amount of enthusiast stuff than it used to have in the 1980s. There are two magazines which are more along the lines of the old Rail Enthusiast, these are Rail Express which also has a modelling supplement and plenty of current stuff and Railways Illustrated which tends to go a bit more for the heritage side.

 

[the sniper]

Thanks for the replies. Having just rekindled my interest, I'm after the magazine that gives the broadest picture of UK railways. My favourite magazine of years ago was "Rail Enthusiast" if I remember correctly. Is this magazine still going or is there something similar under a different name?

I believe 'Rail Enthusiast' became what is now 'Rail' (hasn't it been 'Rail' since the late 80's)? Rail is personally my favourite and is probably the best one for news, as it comes out every fortnight instead of monthly like most of the other mags.

The issue of Rail coming out this Wednesday is probably a good one for you to get, as it's their 30th anniversary issue. Should include a good look back at the 'Rail Enthusiast' days.

As Yorkie and Jimmy said above though, have a read through that other thread.

EDIT: Left too much time between pushing reply and sending my post...

 

[Bittern]

Personally I find "Heritage Railway" to be my favourite. Yet again, I'm more interested in Heritage Railways than mainlines these days.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I find MODERN RAILWAYS excellant for keeping up-to-date with the current thinking on rail matters. For example, in the May 2011 edition, there are two 6pp articles on how the Greater Manchester and the Leeds areas are faring and about forward trends, plus an excellant article on Lincoln and its particular rail connection problems.

 

[linesider]

I have every copy of Rail Enthusiast and a good few of Rail Magazine.Hope to be moving house soon and need the space but their appears to be no market for these magazines,so it looks like they will have to be recycled.I could not even give them away to a local Heritage Railway.

 

[Darandio]

As an alternative for now while you are still deciding, there is a weekly online magazine called Railway Herald which is fairly informative. All back issues are available too in case you want to do some catching up. http://www.railwayherald.co.uk/

As for physical print magazines, I am still rather loyal to Railway Magazine, it keeps me abreast of what I want to know. I still buy the occasional issue of Rail though.

 

[Masbroughlad]

IMO - RAIL is the best on the market.

 

[lm321412]

For easy reading, plenty of photos, monthly stock news etc then I would go for Todays Railways, which is published by Platform 5 Books.

But if you are interested in 'The Future', 'Railway Analysis' etc etc then you should go for something like Modern Railways or RAIL.


I don't paticularly like RAIL because it no longer seems to be aimed at the general enthusiast anymore.

 

[CosherB]

'Railway Magazine' is the market leader circulation-wise, and is non-specialist (covers modern, heritage, steam, rail news etc). More for the railway enthusiast than for the railway professional, which sounds like what you want.

 

[dangie]

Thanks everyone. Hate being spoilt for choice! Into WHS tomorrow. As a quick second question, I have a £15 WHS voucher. Are there any good books on modern UK Railways?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I have every copy of Rail Enthusiast and a good few of Rail Magazine.Hope to be moving house soon and need the space but their appears to be no market for these magazines,so it looks like they will have to be recycled.I could not even give them away to a local Heritage Railway.

The Brookside Garden Centre in Poynton has a well-known narrow gauge railway and in their booking office, they always have good amounts of old railway and tram magazines which they have no trouble selling to people in their shop at a nominal cost which goes towards the costs of running the railway. Is there not such a small narrow-gauge railway near to where you live? Would any of your local churches be able to sell them at charity events?

I had copies of The Railway Magazine from 1956 to 1975 and I had them half-bound by a printing company in Manchester with the name and the year gold blocked on the spine. They were in very good condition, i.e. no crossings out in ball point pen, etc. When we last moved home, we were selling a number of my wife's medical books to a dealer who came to see them. He said that my magazines were correctly bound and an unbroken set of 20 years, so he rang his fellow dealer. I was offered an extremely good price and since I had copies of other transport publications covering that period, I acepted his offer.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

'Railway Magazine' is the market leader circulation-wise, and is non-specialist (covers modern, heritage, steam, rail news etc). More for the railway enthusiast than for the railway professional, which sounds like what you want.

It's fast becoming Editor's Whine Monthly in his columns. So much so that I will be thinking of cancelling my subscription.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

RAIL - seems to be leaning more towards business/finance now over the past few years...
RAIL EXPRESS - good all-rounders
TODAY'S RAILWAYS UK - another good all-rounder,especially for DMU/EMU history, line guides, improvement news etc (also a EUROPE version produced)
RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED - probably the best for heritage/preservation and haulage, but good for theat only (poor on other levels). And the editor has serious problems with a certain Mr Hill, which I can't do with
MODERN RAILWAYS - what the title says, very engineering focussed though.

Overall:
General - TRUK/EU and RAIL EXPRESS
General and a bit o' business - RAIL
Heritage etc - RAILWAY ILLUSTRATED
Engineering - MODERN RAILWAYS

A good (free!) online one is Railway Herald, published every Monday, quite good for passenger news etc and rail tours.

 

[linesider]

The Brookside Garden Centre in Poynton has a well-known narrow gauge railway and in their booking office, they always have good amounts of old railway and tram magazines which they have no trouble selling to people in their shop at a nominal cost which goes towards the costs of running the railway. Is there not such a small narrow-gauge railway near to where you live? Would any of your local churches be able to sell them at charity events?

I had copies of The Railway Magazine from 1956 to 1975 and I had them half-bound by a printing company in Manchester with the name and the year gold blocked on the spine. They were in very good condition, i.e. no crossings out in ball point pen, etc. When we last moved home, we were selling a number of my wife's medical books to a dealer who came to see them. He said that my magazines were correctly bound and an unbroken set of 20 years, so he rang his fellow dealer. I was offered an extremely good price and since I had copies of other transport publications covering that period, I acepted his offer.

Thank you for your advice.I did offer them free to the Wensleydale Railway to sell in their shop but they did not want them.I am reluctant to recycle the magazines especially the first Rail Enthusiasts,so i will ask around a few more charities.

 

[TUC]

I find Rail magazine the best by far for news and discussion about today's rail industry. I must admit that I find it a bit puzzling that there seems to be a bit of an assumption that 'enthusiasts' (not a term a really like) would be more interested in magazines that look back to the past. Why wouldn't someone be equally likely to be interested in the industry here and now?

 

[CosherB]

It's fast becoming Editor's Whine Monthly in his columns. So much so that I will be thinking of cancelling my subscription.

It's good that an editor has strong opinions which he is not afraid to air. Who wants a weak and bland 'offend no-one' publication?

 

[connor7777]

i like to read the magazine that has a white cover and says UK on it in red, there is alseo a Europe version in blue next to it, forgot the name sorry.

 

[Greenback]

That would be Today's Railways UK then!

 

[connor7777]

Yes thats the one, I like that one, I thaught I was the only person who went to WHSmiths to read rail mags.