In the News
Another Garden Rail magazine?
Oct 31, 2007
By Noel Widdifield
LSOL.com Managing Editor |
Author
Bio
The other day I noticed that another garden-railroading magazine was going to be appearing in hobby shops in the near future. I was interested in discovering something about that magazine so I contacted the editor and asked for a couple of issues to allow me to write a review for LSOL.com. He quickly complied with my request and even offered to send a sample of the books on Garden Railroading that they publish.
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The other day I noticed that another garden-railroading magazine was going to be appearing in hobby shops in the near future. Carsten's Publishing, which publishes "Railroad Model Craftsman", "Railfan & Railroad" and "On30 Annual", advertised that they will be offering three new magazines in hobby shops and one of them is "Garden Rail". I was interested in discovering something about that magazine so I contacted the editor and asked for a couple of issues to allow me to write a review for LSOL.com. He quickly complied with my request and even offered to send a sample of the books on Garden Railroading that they publish. The magazine is "Garden Rail" published by Atlantic Publishers located in Southend-on-sea, Essex, United Kingdom. www.atlanticpublishers.com In addition to "Garden Rail", Atlantic publishes several other magazines and books dedicated to the railway hobby industry.   The magazine is a British publication aimed at established "converts" to the hobby, as well as those yet to desert their indoor layouts and discover the real potential of large-scale modelling in an outdoor setting. It is a very professional looking magazine with lots of high quality photos and a clean layout.
Tag Gorton is editor of "GardenRail" magazine and a past editor of "16mm Today" (The house organ of the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers), author of Steam in Your Garden (an introduction to commercial narrow gauge steam) and editor of "Garden Railways in Focus". He also produced a monthly column for "Model Railway Enthusiast" and was, for many years, the garden railway correspondent for "Railway Modeller". Tag was drawn into the garden by the siren call of live steam and, while his own railway is to 16mm scale, he has an interest in all live steam motive power from twelve inches to the foot down. He grew up in the county of Surrey and, while he always had an interest in railways, his career in the Royal Navy precluded him from doing much in the way of modeling - although he did dabble in N gauge for a while. He started modeling in the garden on leaving the Royal Navy and after seeing the early live steam narrow gauge locomotives produced by Merlin and Archangel. He was fascinated then by live steam and remains so today. Tag writes the editorial page each month that talks to his experience with his own railroad and provides bits of information about his railroad's impact on his domestic life, the weather, difficulties with purchasing US products in the UK, upcoming garden railway shows and the Garden Rail website that is currently being improved. He says "I took up writing after becoming bored with my civilian occupation and things sort of developed from there".  The cover features a main photo of a garden railroad layout featured in the issue with a right top insert photo of a product being reviewed that month. The table of contents page includes a listing of the staff and the contents of that issue. . There are also miniature photos providing previews for some of the articles. The contributing staff is fairly extensive and includes review columnists, technical experts, a horticulturalist, photographer and administrative personnel. Tag points out that the only full time staff includes himself and a graphics and advertising person.
 The magazine covers a couple of garden railroad layouts each month, with descriptions of the railroad, bits of information about the locos, rolling stock and/or buildings made by the owner, a diagram of the railroad layout, plant information and usually a little history about the owner and the railroad. The August 2007 issue covers "A Real Railway" about the Dovenby Beck Light Railway. "A Real Railway" is written by the owner and the railroad is used by the author to move vegetables from his garden, bird feed, grass cuttings, coal for the locomotives and even ballast for the railway. I found it very interesting that the steam locomotives and many of the diesels are all named. The author writes about his live-steam locomotives Arthur and Madeleine as if they were people. 
 The second layout covered in the August issue is "The Littledale Tramway, A Work in Progress" by Godfrey Tonks. It is an imaginary line used to serve the lead mines in the North Pennines area in England. Here again the locomotives are named Mortimer and Crowdundle and the ties are called sleepers. It is a beautiful little railroad with many people figures and small well-done buildings. Mortimer is a live steam loco and Crowdundle is a small electric scratchbuilt switcher. These locos pull very small coaches and wagons on the railway. 
 The product reviews are generally on European models, but they have done several reviews on American models, particularly with G scale electric models. In the August 2007 issue, there are reviews on the LGB V51 Diesel, the P&J Models Drop Door Coal Wagon, the Regner Dampf & Eisenbahntechnik Wilma and the Bachmann Ore Car. As you would expect, these reviews are from the British Narrow Gauge perspective and contain subtle dry British humor, but they are fair and accurate reviews. 
  
There are "how to" articles in the August issue. The first is by Peter Spoerer about how to convert a stud contact DMU (Diesel Multiple Unit) to modern battery power. The Gauge One model in 1/32 scale is a 1957 version that had been lying around in a cardboard box for several years. As near as I can tell, a "stud contact" loco is one with a skate contact for a center third rail and in order for the loco to run on one of the modern club layouts, it needed to be converted so that it could obtain power for the motor. The article is an excellent series of steps required to make the conversion to battery power. The photos are very clear and make the article easy to follow. The suppliers of all of the needed parts are named and the addresses are included. The author was able to complete the conversion in time for the Ally-Pally (Alexandra Palace) 2007 train show. It appears that the exterior of the loco/coach set is in excellent condition, but the interior remains in poor condition and the East Anglian Train Group is still looking for someone to restore the interior to its original condition. 
 The final "how to" article is about scratchbuilding a Winter Car for the Dysynni Valley Railway. The railway is an imaginary small, very poor coal-hauling railroad that also carries the occasional passenger. It seems that the railway knocked together a ramshackle railbus to try to maintain some sort of service for the remaining passengers and for occasional loads of coal still heading up the valley". The author, Peter Twigg, describes his efforts to build this "ramshackle railbus" using parts from the scrap box to include gears and a can motor. The result is, in the author's words, a "complete monstrosity" but a very nicely done little railbus. 
In the July 2007 issue there is an article on "Steam Locomotives at Diamondhead" by David Pinniger covering the small-scale steam up held each year in Mississippi. The author, who had attended for the first time in 2005, gives a short overview of the event and describes some of the live steam locomotives at the show. He tells us that he carried his "little TME Quarry Hunslet Velinheli" in his hand luggage and ran it at the show. He describes Peter Comley's red streamlined Duchess of Lancaster and explains that not only did it "look splendid on the full Coronation train, but the sound from the exhaust was superb". 
 The magazine includes a new products section call "Trading places" that provides very short reviews with pictures of newly released products. The August issue included locos, rolling stock (wagons) buildings and accessories. In the July 2007 issue, I found coverage of Light Rail Products, owned by our Karl Johnson. (We had covered this company here at LSOL.com in Oct. 2006 -- Exclusive: Light Rail Products - Profiles)  
A final section includes mail received, ads by individuals for things for sale, a schedule of upcoming railway events and club news. The magazine is 52 pages long with only 15 pages of advertisements. The ads are sectioned off from the rest of the contents in the beginning and end of the publication. This allows one to read the entire written section without having to stop for ads in between the articles. Clearly this is a magazine published primarily for a British and European audience, but the articles and reviews are of interest to anyone who models these prototypes. There is a decidedly live steam flavor to the magazine, although there is coverage of electric models as well. Currently a year's subscription from Atlantic Publishers is $146.30. They are going to begin to offer online digital subscriptions at a much lower price. When the magazine is made available by Carsten's Publishing in hobby shops, the cost will probably be considerably less. The magazine is published every month and comes out in the middle of the month. When you see the magazine in a hobby shop, you might want to purchase a copy and decide for yourself. Although I am not into live steam or European railroads, I found "Garden Rail" to be very well done and interesting. It is very professionally put together and adds a monthly Garden Railroad magazine to what is currently available. As I was finishing with the final edit of this article, two of the Garden Rail Special editions came in the mail. They were John Lythgoe's "Your G-Scale Locomotive, An easy guide to care and maintenance" and Tag Gorton's "Live Steam Workshop, Simple and easy ways to personalize and detail your live steam locomotive". These are the first two of a regular series of specials on specific subjects. "Garden Rail" plans a couple more of these books next year. They were sent to us from Trevor Ridley, the publisher. I will do a review on both of them for a future article. They both look to be very informative and useful to Garden Railroaders.  
| Interesting Review |
| Noel, Appreciate the well written review. For the live steam crowd and those that model "acrossed the pond" equipment the publication will no doubt be welcome. |
| Jon D. Miller - 10/31/2007 - 06:12 |
| New "G" Scale Magazine |
| Noel, Great in depth review of the new publication to be carried by Carstens. Great for the Euro groups who model this type of equipment. My sense is it does not offer much for the North American market. |
| Christian Devereaux - 10/31/2007 - 07:12 |
| english garden railroading |
| It will be nice to get this magazine on this side of the pond. I frequent an english forum and the hobbyists there tend to be more middle class and middle aged. Layouts are smaller and busier since few have big backyards. They are also a friendlier bunch as post to read ratios are much better than US forums. -Brian |
| brian donovan - 10/31/2007 - 11:01 |
| Garden Rail Online Subscription |
| The online version is up and running... and a fraction of the hard copy cost. It is a bit challenging to negotiate online, but all the material is there, and very good quality. The subscription inlcudes all of the last years issues as well, so in essence you get two years for the price... Thanks for your article JohnD |
| John Dillon - 10/31/2007 - 15:39 |
| Garden Rail |
| John, I wrote the article a couple of months ago and Tag let me see what they were doing with the online version, but it wasn't fully functional at that time. Tag said that it would be a cheaper way to go and also that when Carstens began to distribute the magazine in the US that the price for the hard copy of it would also go down considerably. I am reviewing two books that they have published on Large Scale trains and we will have that on the LSOL.com site in the future. Noel |
| Noel Widdifield - 10/31/2007 - 16:05 |
| Nice but... |
| Its nice to see that there is another choice out there. The most recognized magazine we have "over here" is loosing touch with most Garden Railroaders I speak (or chat) with. I am not into British rail nor live steam, but I do hope to get into live steam someday. I do hope the price comes down a lot from $146.30 a year for the hard copy. Just wish there was more choices in the US market, unfortunately we have lost a few magazines for our gauge recently. :( |
| David A. Maynard - 10/31/2007 - 17:19 |
| subscriptions |
| I heard from someone who contacted Carstens that a one year (12 issues) subscription will be $95.95. -Brian |
| brian donovan - 11/02/2007 - 09:33 |
| Subscriptions - Online |
| I subscribed a month ago. The price was approx. $60 for an online subscription (depends on pound-dollar conversion rates) and you get access to many back issues as well. The online quality is superb - you can zoom into all the graphic pages very nicely - the colors are sharp and pages laid out nicely. Yes there are adverts from UK dealers but that is certainly no detraction. Nice to have wider perspectives on our hobby. Now if I could only read German a lot better.... |
| AL McEvoy - 11/02/2007 - 09:51 |
| About Time |
| It's nice to see a magazine that covers all aspects of this hobby and not just a page or two. I know I'll get a subscription. I recently took the leap to live steam and am enjoying it more and more everyday. I run the Welsh loco's and rolling stock. Don't get me wrong I still like running my electric loco's, but my next few purchases will be live steam. |
| Dan - 11/02/2007 - 17:47 |
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