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Chris Leigh - 50 years in railway journalism


dibber25
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Many congratulations Chris. I met you when you had been promoted to tea boy at the Kernow Model Railway Exhibition in the Carn Brea Leasure Centre a couple of years ago. It was apleasure to serve you and 'the boy'.

 

Best wishes

 

Derek

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Congrats, incidently i've just bought the Model railway constructor annual for 1985, some really good articles other than what I wanted it for, (Bartlett HEA drawings).

 

Here's to the next fifty.....

Dear Chris

 

Simply to add my congratulations. It has been a long long time since Staines MRC. Happy memories 'doing' Savernake on a railway strike day - we roamed freely, although I took few photos http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brwr/e52beea38  A couple of visits to Feltham Yard http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brsr/e52baa3c2  and finally pulling down the building at the Egham race track that was rebuilt as the Egham and Staines MRC club house.

 

It was the experiences you related of early IA MRC days that encouraged me to do photography of the unusual - wagons and lineside - and in colour. And of course, when the group of us started publishing the wagon articles in MRC, we were permitted one, or sometimes two, colour plates. Incredible now that colour publishing is so easy that it can be used throughout books and magazines.

 

All the best, I can understand your reluctance to retire, but believe me it has some advantages.

 

Paul

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Congratulations, I've always enjoyed your writing.

 

I must have started reading MRC a few years before you started working for IA.

 

These days I particularly enjoy your editorship of Steam World.

 

David

Edited by DaveF
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Dear Chris

 

Simply to add my congratulations. It has been a long long time since Staines MRC. Happy memories 'doing' Savernake on a railway strike day - we roamed freely, although I took few photos http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brwr/e52beea38  A couple of visits to Feltham Yard http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brsr/e52baa3c2  and finally pulling down the building at the Egham race track that was rebuilt as the Egham and Staines MRC club house.

 

It was the experiences you related of early IA MRC days that encouraged me to do photography of the unusual - wagons and lineside - and in colour. And of course, when the group of us started publishing the wagon articles in MRC, we were permitted one, or sometimes two, colour plates. Incredible now that colour publishing is so easy that it can be used throughout books and magazines.

 

All the best, I can understand your reluctance to retire, but believe me it has some advantages.

 

Paul

I didn't take many shots that day, either. What a shame we didn't have digital in those days and were so restricted by how much film we could afford to shoot. The Savernake trip was great and I have (somewhere) a number of 'trespass' shots! However, the thing I remember most was that I had bought a new 50ft tape measure specially for the trip. I recall being somewhat worried when, as I held one end, the other end was thrown across the canal to measure the width of the missing MSWJR bridge. A shame that the layout never got built, although years later I did build the Low Level station building for Model Rail. Sadly, the building is lost, having been left somewhere off site after a photo session and never returned. The drawings we used in MRC were, I think, some of the best ever published in terms of accuracy and quality of draughtsmanship. No point publishing drawings these days - to few scratch-builders to make it worthwhile. There are better uses of the space for today's magazine audience.

CHRIS LEIGH

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Congratulations, I've always enjoyed your writing.

 

I must have started reading MRC a few years you started working for IA.

 

These days I particularly enjoy your editorship of Steam World.

 

David

I try to include the odd item here and there in Steam World that I believe will be of interest or use to modellers. 

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Well done Chris!

 

Those were the days when colour pages were sparsely scattered through MRC. Now colour is obligatory on every page in every mag!

 

I recall the Black Dog Halt series and some years later you allowed me to splash a few static grass fibres on the layout which I really appreciated because I had long admired the layout.

 

At our last chat I recall you have layouts dotted everywhere in your house (plus garden) so we can enjoy your projects for many years to come in the pages of magazines.

 

Do Model Rail give you a bigger desk now?

 

Kindest regards,

 

 

Peter

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Many congratulations.I have read so many of your articles over the years that I feel that I almost know you.

 

Thank you for being the first in providing proper critical evaluations of models produced by our major suppliers. A most welcome service.

 

Best regards, John.

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Hats off to you Chris, that's quite an achievement, a working life spent doing what you love!  

 

Regards Shaun.

 

Edit: I beg to differ about including drawings in magazines, without them we're just encouraging the chineese to do the modelling for us!  

Edited by Sasquatch
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Congratulations Chris on 50 not out.

 

I particularly remember the MRC in the mid 1960s and articles such as a small mainline terminus spread over three issues (1967) and the quay line from the same year, based on Weymouth.

 

Probably my favourite was the one of a BR (SR - SW Division) MPD with a small shed, turntable and coal stage. The track looked especially grotty. Did it ever work or was it just a diorama?

 

Talking of those who encouraged you, SWSS was the first editor to accept one of my articles, so I'll always be thankful to him.

 

Best wishes,

 

P

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Congratulations Chris on 50 not out.

 

I particularly remember the MRC in the mid 1960s and articles such as a small mainline terminus spread over three issues (1967) and the quay line from the same year, based on Weymouth.

 

Probably my favourite was the one of a BR (SR - SW Division) MPD with a small shed, turntable and coal stage. The track looked especially grotty. Did it ever work or was it just a diorama?

 

Talking of those who encouraged you, SWSS was the first editor to accept one of my articles, so I'll always be thankful to him.

 

Best wishes,

 

P

As far as I can remember it used a Continental 'HO' engine shed. Alan Williams did quite a lot of work on it and we used mainly his SR locos. It was just a diorama and I think it got broken up soon afterwards. One of the problems with all the mags I've ever worked on is lack of office space and storage. As the provision of space has become more and more expensive, so publishers provide less and less. Nowadays, pretty much everything has to be done at home, which as Swisspeat recalls my house being full of layouts. It is. 

CHRIS LEIGH

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Many congratulations!

I regularly bought MRC in the early 80s & felt quite distressed when I realised the title was being discontinued, especially thinking about your position as I felt you had improved the style & content so much in the previous years. As Paul Bartlett said, it does seem unbelievable now that there wasn't more colour available! I did feel rather glad when I saw that you were taking over at Model Rail, simply to see that you were back in the field again; "the rest is history...."

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In its last years the colour in MRC was on one side of an eight-page section IIRC. That meant you got the front and back covers and the fourth pages from the front and back, which put your editorial colour in among the adverts! (Those were the days when model mags had adverts equally split front and back - an old-fashioned idea that had been dumped by the rest of magazine publishing years before). You also got charged for colour separations - the breaking up of the picture into the four ink colours for printing - so the more individual pictures you had, the more it cost. Now, the reverse is true. You pay a price based on the whole job being in colour and if you use black and white pictures, you don't get a reduction, you're just wasting a colour opportunity. What isn't generally realised, though, is how many jobs have disappeared in those 50 years, mainly due to computerisation - typesetters, proof readers, compositors, repro houses, and on the print shop floor. Magazines now go from Editor to designer, to printing press - even the couriers who used to take material between the editorial office, repro house and printer are no longer needed. 

CHRIS LEIGH

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Unfortunately, the proof readers should not have been dispensed with.  They are still needed.

 

Simply activating automatic spell and grammar check doesn't stop things like 'I went to the shops and brought three Hatchet coaches.' 

 

In this month's Horny mag, the current operator of the Northern franchise is referred to as Abellino.

 

Unashamedly, I will not be caving in to the Americanisation and chavving-down of our great language whilst there's air in my lungs and a twitch in my typing finger.

 

 

Oh, and Chris - congratulations!   :angel:

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The drawings we used in MRC were, I think, some of the best ever published in terms of accuracy and quality of draughtsmanship. No point publishing drawings these days - to few scratch-builders to make it worthwhile. There are better uses of the space for today's magazine audience.

CHRIS LEIGH

Remember some of the issues of MRC had the drawings on coloured paper - totally unreadable. One issue at least, had dark blue paper & black ink - top stuff! Perhaps these days they can be scanned & have the colours edited.

 

Railway Modeller seems to manage OK with drawings!

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Surely the point of putting drawings in mags is to encourage people to scratchbuild. Just a thought...

 

Incidentally I did come up with a garage-sized plan based on Savernake many years ago (complete with working canal!). I may well still have the plan somewhere...

Edited by RJS1977
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Remember some of the issues of MRC had the drawings on coloured paper - totally unreadable. One issue at least, had dark blue paper & black ink - top stuff! Perhaps these days they can be scanned & have the colours edited.

 

Railway Modeller seems to manage OK with drawings!

Yes, I think that was the one with the loco shed, referred to earlier, in it. The coloured ticket board was a disaster but in those days DESIGN was the all-important thing. The Design Centre in London had just opened and there were things like amazingly shaped chairs that were hideously uncomfortable to sit on. At the time, the purpose of design was to take all the old conventions and dump them, in favour of the NEW, however ridiculous and impractical. We all took it on board, too. Just remember we're talking about the 1960s here. Like all fads, it didn't last long and by the time I began my City & Guilds course (in Design for Printing) in 1970, 'Fitness for Purpose' was the watchword for design. I wonder how many of RM's readers actually use the drawings....the other problem with drawings is that most magazine budgets simply can't afford to pay realistic fees for scale drawings.

CHRIS LEIGH

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