Trackside Magazine

Re staffing - from Facebook:
"currently Mel Holley, Paul Appleton and Tony Streeter with a wide array of experienced contributors, soon to be expanded to include Nick Brodrick, Pip Dunn and others. Paul"

I am another subscriber who has been very disappointed with SR of late. Even with a lack of news items, it is still very feasible to put together features on particular locos or railways. They managed it with 71000, but that was the only one!
I would prefer to see a much more varied range of locos/railways covered - when was the last time SR did a feature on the Caledonian Railway at Brechin for example? Much better to try to cover all railways instead of producing repetative articles on the same railways time and time again.

 

I'm not a great magazine buyer, but I had a quick look at a copy in the local WHS reading room this afternoon and it looked like a good quality magazine, but nothing about it said "buy me, buy me". Whether there is enough material out there to sustain it, I'm not sure.

I'm surprised there was no incentive to buy the first issue in order to get people used to buying it.

 

I think any magazine that wants to look at more than just wheeled things that go "chuff" and gets us thinking about signalling, photo collections, why we are actually doing what we do and is a bit more of a cerebral read can be a good thing. As a kid, Steam World had it right for me, but I thik this one if it can celebrate 18" gauge battery electric locos in Derbyshire as well as A4s, it will apeeal to volunteers and enthusiasts alike. I've not seen a copy yet, but from what I hear, it will cover EVERY aspect of preservation and heritage. People boycotting it because it's" all steam" or "has diesels in it" says a lot about them and sadly the future of the preservation world if everyone thinks that way. I'm hoping for a broad church approach with room for everyone and good luck to Mr Appleton and team/

 

I've ordered the first issue, to see what I think of it. I don't have a regular subscription to any of the railway magazines.

 

Some of the staff at Steam Railway are IIRC moving over to Steam World which is in very good health at the moment. A recent issue of Steam World stated that they have a number of new writers joining the Magazine in the coming months. I nearly gave up on Steam World quite a while ago but a change of editor has really brought the Magazine back up to top form again and I kept my subscription going.
I took out a subscription to Steam Railway during the pandemic and have been disappointed with the way the Magazine has been going down hill rapidly. The Mortons titles (Heritage Railway & The Railway Magazine) managed keep up their excellent standards throughout the pandemic.
I will be interested to see what the first issue of this new Trackside magazine is like. Anyone know if it is available in WHSmith yet?

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I've always liked Steam Railway, it's very well presented and the general news writing, I feel, is of a better standard than Heritage Railway. I think the latter has a smaller team, and a tendency to reprint bland press releases verbatim. That said, I agree that Steam Railway has felt like it has a lot of 'filler' articles over the last few months....we don't really need to see another feature on 'discover the Severn Valley/RHDR/Bluebell' etc. I've ordered a copy of Trackside. I'd like to see more stories about the early days of preservation, and a bit more focus on burgeoning smaller lines.

 

See my post above - available in my local whs

 

I think Tony Streeter is moving to Steam World to write a regular column. I am not sure if any other names were mentioned yet.
If I get time this evening I will try and find the recent issue with the editorial that mentioned the new people joining the team.

 

So quick Companies House check suggest 3 equal shareholders, Messers Streeter, Brodrick (both recently of SR) and Appleton (has some involvement with 6880 it appears).

 

He owns 33.3% of it, see above.

 

As mentioned in my post #21 above

 

Apologies for a bit of thread drift:
In the May issue of Steam World there is an article about Tony Streeter joining the Magazine. He will be contributing quite a lot with articles and also features on photographic collections. The article also says that there will be some exciting announcements about future plans with Steam World Magazine in coming months.

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Tony is listed as associate editor.

 

I picked up at copy at WHS( Thanks Simon) on my walk after work.
As others have stated the intial issue is very good. The first three issue will be bi-monthly, then it is planned to go monthly.The exisitng two SR and HR are like a curate's egg, good in parts The quality of the paper is better than both the others,and some very good images by Bob Green, Ian Whitehead, Peter Zabek, Phil Waterfield plus others. Paul Appleton is Editor, Tony Streeter is Associate Editor and Mel Holley is News Editor.If they can keep this up, some serious competion for the other two, in particular Steam Railway. I wish them well.

 

I note Steam Railway have recruited Daniel Puddicombe to replace Tony Streeter as author of Down Main, I think this is a positive move as he has written well in other mags and is clearly a promising young writer.
Steam Railway is clearly at a cross roads and the next editor clearly has a job to do. I agree the last few issues have been disappointing, but having been a subscriber for probably 20 years it has reinvented itself several times.
I will look at Trackside though, just out of curiosity! However, don't think I can justify yet another subscription..

 

Agreed and like Tony is actually speaking to the promoters, while in HR it is usually just from the promoters website although states written by Robin or Cedric.

 

IMHO the first edition suffers from being a touch too lococentric.