Railway Magazine

Amazon Marketplace is a better place to sell Railway books in my experience. Not perfect, but better quality stuff can make decent money.

Simon

 

I've seen fairly recent railway magazines for sale in High Street second hand bookshops at ambitious prices like £2, and burst out laughing. Perhaps some mug will turn up and pay silly prices, but I find preserved railways aren't interested in them. Back Track may fare better. Books possibly, if not too general.

 

The magazines that really sell are Bylines and British Railways Illustrated which is why they are so rare in Railway bookshops.

 

Reading General

Since I retired I run my wife's eBay shop for her and we ship quite a lot to the ROI and if anyone tries to tell you it costs "£9.50 for one magazine to Ireland form the UK" they are lying. I have just weighed a recent copy of Railway Magazine which would be a UK Large Letter (under 500 gms) and would cost £5.15, add on a little for p&p and eBay fees should not come to more than £5.80.You can send a 1kg parcel for the price you mentioned.

 

I just had a quick look at eBay and I could get 3x Great Western Journals sent to Oz for £7.00.

 

I inherited a vast (and I mean vast - over 20,000!) collection of old railway magazines which had been mouldering in a shed for years. Most were still in good condition (though the musty smell caused my wife to banish me to the conservatory while I sorted through them. This yielded many gems and I still have the complete set of RM from 1930 to 1995, and Railway World (including its predecessor publication prior to 1949). I had many of BR's own in house regional magazines which are a wonderful insight into people who worked on the railways in the 1950s. And I had many duplicates which I attempted to sell through eBay but sold not a single one. I estimate to have given away or dumped over 15,000 now including many thousands devoted to railway modelling. The irony was some months later a chap called and was interested in all old model railway magazines. I thought he was going to cry when I told him they were gone. I have now hidden the remainder from my wife and I read them for pleasure and what a pleasure it is . The articles of old journeys long ago by formidable old writers such as O.S Nock are a joy - and read like "Mr Cholmondeley-Warner takes the train". Woe betide any ticket collector who interrupted these gentlemen in the serious pursuit of railway enthusiasm! but the best aspect by far are the advertisements and classifieds. Reading these I realise more than anything what we were and what we have lost. We say it was a more innocent time - it surely was. My advice if you have really old (pre 1960) magazines is - Keep them, Read them and enjoy them.

 

Hear hear...... so who wants them? heading for the UK next week might be able to hook up a delivery....


oh and free in return for a donation to your favourite railway.

 

Has anyone watched the comedy "Friday Night Dinner"? Lovely episode where the father is stockpiling his old "New Scientist" magazines and is indeed buying more despite having been told by his wife to get rid!

 

I imagine any magazines published in the last 20 years or so will be easily available, in the future, by download whereas older volumes might get harder to find.
Just a thought.

 

I get Steam Railway every month as a "freebie" with my Lloyds Bank account. I just donate them to my GP's waiting room when I've read them.

 

Ever visit Gloucestershire?


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Toddington often...there's a very nice garden centre there, might be other attractions.

 

Well give me a shout next time your visiting and I'll take them off your hands. Shall we say £10 to the broadway station appeal?


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It is sad that there is almost no market for magazines - even old ones, as the content is always fascinating and insightful on many levels. If time was unlimited and copyright was not an issue I would have loved to scan and index all the magazines to create a huge online reference library covering just about every aspect of the railways in the 20th century. It is the indexing that is both the problem and the answer - we all have our particular areas of interest but each old magazine is a bit of pot luck. Imagine if you could find and access every article or photograph of a particular location or railwayman or loco from every magazine in the 20tch century at the click of a mouse. All the data is there, it's a just a vast new trawl through several large boxes every time you want anything. Perhaps I should leave all my remaining magazines to the national library in my will!

 

Interestingly enough Railway Magazine do have an online archive, seemingly available to subscribers only as an add-on https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive/.
Personally I wish more publishers would create an online archive but extend the access to non subscribers, I'm sure most people wouldn't object to a modest fee being involved.
Modern houses just don't have the room to retain any quantity of paper media so after looking out the ones with articles of real interest to me I parted with almost all of my magazine mountain to the SVR via the sales van at Hampton Loade over the last few years and they certainly weren't rejected so it's worth adding the SVR to the VCT at Ingrow as a potential outlet.

 

@jsm8b Having spent a few bob over the years on ancient volumes of RM to get hold of one particular article, I can sympathise with your view. Equally, I can understand the publishers' position in providing an incentive to get folks to cough up a steady income stream. Railway publishing isn't exactly J.K.Rowling territory!

With (moderately) secure internet payment now a reality, some means of payment for access to back issues on either a one-off or annual basis shouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility. With the opportunity presented for targeted marketing (I know .... neither do I .... but that's the reality of it!), you'd imagine it should work to the benefit of all.

 

A few years back I was asked to clear out the magazine collection of an elderly gent in the village where I live.
It comprised of bound copies of at least 5 titles dating back to the late 1920's
All in very good condition.
Was there any interest?
I managed to get rid of a full set of the Meccano magazine, that was it.

I loaded the rest up into a transit van and made 3 trips to VCT at Ingrow.

Old mags are not worth the trouble, recycle them no matter what age or title they are.
Unfortunately for our group after recycling paper etc since the early 70's we are having to stop our efforts,
otherwise I would say give them to us we will get rid of them for you.

 

I wonder how long until the local concil recycling centre will demand payment to dump large collections of old books and magazines.

 

I think we have a state of mind that magazines relating to railways have an intrinsic value - perhaps we should think of them like newspapers and chuck them as soon as we have read them rather than hoarding them.

I've said on earlier posts that I donate them to my GP's Waiting Room - that's the best use I can think of for them.