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Railway Bylines and British Railways Illustrated new owners


Butler Henderson
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Both magazines have been sold by Irwell Press to Guideline Publications although George Reeve and Chris Hawkins remain as Design & Commercial and Editor. The only noticeable change apart from  a lack of Irwell adverts (maybe one off given the full page explanations of the change) is the addition of an 8 page Model Railway News; issue 1 comprises of reviews of recent and not so recent announcements and releases and an article on Baby Warship models notable for including a picture of Hornby 29 described as a Dapol 22.

Edited by Butler Henderson
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I've read Bylines almost since it first came out (2nd issue on...) and I was rather taken aback to see a. that it had been sold to new publishers and b. that it had a rather underwhelming modelling insert.

 

If things change for the worst, they're going to lose a long term reader!

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The market is already overcrowded with modelling mags, so one can only conclude that they don’t have the knowledge and/or access to photographic resources to continue in the trusted vein ...... or they are desperate to attract readers, because the loyal following is too small to be sustainable.

 

I was a regular buyer of Bylines for a long time, but cut back to “the odd one every now and then”. I have a feeling that it was free access to “Disused Stations” on the web that might have made the difference. 
 

The photos often do look ‘iffy’, but I’ve always put that down to the originals not really being strong enough to take being blown-up to the sizes they are, although maybe an element of not spending enough time on the digital tweaking of contrast etc has crept in over time.

Edited by Nearholmer
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15 minutes ago, Stephenwolsten said:

I hope the new owners improve the quality of the reproduction of photos.    They are often very grainy and washed out.

 

Whoever publishes the magazine, the photos will be a problem.  Back then, not everyone had a camera with a decent lens and used fine-grained film, correctly exposed and carefully developed and printed.  Many are snaps taken with the equivalent of a 1950s Brownie 127 or a 120 camera with a similar (4.5x6 cm) frame size on inexpensive film, processed at the local chemist and returned with enprints.  Even with a negative, to blow the image up to even a half-page size, there is going to be grain. There is only so much that can be done with Photoshop to mitigate that.

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1 hour ago, enginelane said:


it was called MORILL 

 

As has already been mentioned. I still have the first few issues which showed a great deal of promise, then it all seemed to unravel.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought every copy of Bylines for the first 4 years and then cut back my spending. I still buy copies now and again but the industrial content seemed to have dropped until the new issue, which is a good sign.

 

On the other hand, I think the modelling pages are a waste of space. Little Bytham may be a fine layout but it's not Bylines material, nor is anything else in there. Now if the modelling content was industrial and light railways then it would definitely add to the magazine and I'm sure I would go back to buying it regularly.

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The January issue of Bylines seemed oddly familiar to me when I picked it up the other day.

 

Green saddletank on cover

Lead article about the Great Orme Tramway

 

Hmmm....

 

Then it came to me, I'd been sorting through some mags to see which to chuck and amongst them was the May 2017 issue of Bylines

 

Green saddletank on  cover

Lead article about the Great Orme Tramway

 

Ok, the locos were different (0-4-0 Hawthorne Leslie called "Mary" vs 0-6-0 Robert Stephenson called "Ruth")  but you'd think they could be a bit more original.....  :jester:

 

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For most of the historical mags (perhaps not Backtrack) I notice similar stuff coming round again after a few years.

 

It's probably more pronounced where there is a lot of colour content; every other issue of Steam Days seems to have a feature on Bulleid Pacifics in 1966.

 

 

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On 07/01/2020 at 09:30, Ruston said:

I bought every copy of Bylines for the first 4 years and then cut back my spending. I still buy copies now and again but the industrial content seemed to have dropped until the new issue, which is a good sign.

 

On the other hand, I think the modelling pages are a waste of space. Little Bytham may be a fine layout but it's not Bylines material, nor is anything else in there. Now if the modelling content was industrial and light railways then it would definitely add to the magazine and I'm sure I would go back to buying it regularly.

The problem is that the modelling section is exactly the same in both Brill and Bylines - which is both unimaginative and rather irritating if, like me, you buy both mags because of their different areas of coverage.  Editorship so far is unchanged.

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