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LNER Passenger Trains and Formations


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  • 1 month later...
On 29/07/2019 at 11:25, Pint of Adnams said:

Volume 2 now delayed until the end of April 2020...  www.crecy.co.uk/lner-passenger-train-formations-vol-2

 

It's been so long since I pre-ordered my copy that I completely forgot about it.  There are three letters I could utter to express my feelings on this further delay, but I won't.  Suffice to say two of them are 'F'.  Sorely tempted to cancel my pre-order. 

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On ‎15‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 13:59, James Harrison said:

 

It's been so long since I pre-ordered my copy that I completely forgot about it.  There are three letters I could utter to express my feelings on this further delay, but I won't.  Suffice to say two of them are 'F'.  Sorely tempted to cancel my pre-order. 

I shouldn't if I were you - by the time it is published (if that ever comes to pass) you may be the only person still alive wanting to purchase a copy... :help:

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  • 3 months later...

Just got this from Crecy:

 

(...) 'Unfortunately we’ve had to remove this title from our catalogue and website as we are unsure when it will be published. We are waiting for the author to finish writing it and there has been quite a few delays so we don’t know when it will be finished. We are really hoping that we will be able to publish this book in the future'. (...)

 

Marcus

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Whatever the underlying "issue" here is, it certainly doesn't appear to be any form of "writer's block", as Mr Banks continues to add new material to his website on a roughly weekly basis.  The wording reference to Volume 2 of the book in a sidebar remains unaltered, however - as it has done for three years or more, saying it should appear in "about a year".  

 

Despite our speculation a while back, therefore, I think it would be hard to blame the publisher in this instance.  As I said back in 2018 (!!):  "Due respect to Messrs Banks and Carter for wanting to get it as 'right' as possible, I suppose ... my only fear is that they fall into the trap some authors do, of holding on and holding on because occasional tiny little nuggets of information are still emerging and they want to present the most complete picture possible ... and then something - call it 'Fate' if you like - intervenes.  The publisher goes bust, they fall ill, somebody else unexpectedly brings out a work that is similar enough it destroys the market for another, or whatever ... and in the end the book never does happen.  Let us hope that won't be the case here.  In the immortal words of the Duke of Wellington:  "Publish and be damned!!" ".

 

We are where we are, and where we were.  Personally, I've pretty much given up now; if it comes it comes - and if it doesn't come ... we'll just have to carry-on doing things "wrong", and at least we have a good excuse!

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  • 2 months later...
On 23/05/2023 at 00:04, RichardT said:

Also available for pre-publication order on hive.co.uk at a small discount - the site also allows you to support independent bookshops with your order (at no cost to you):

https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Clive-Carter/LNER-Passenger-Trains-and-Formations-Volume-II--1923-1967/17414776

 

RichardT

Thanks for the link to hive.co.uk.  I wasn’t aware of them previously.

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On 23/05/2023 at 00:04, RichardT said:

Also available for pre-publication order on hive.co.uk at a small discount - the site also allows you to support independent bookshops with your order (at no cost to you):

https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Clive-Carter/LNER-Passenger-Trains-and-Formations-Volume-II--1923-1967/17414776

 

RichardT

Having at a look at the description on that website it appears to me that Banks is still writing his own puff; the use of words such as 'plethora' and 'carefully researched and detailed study' are very suggestive...

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9 hours ago, Pint of Adnams said:

Having at a look at the description on that website it appears to me that Banks is still writing his own puff; the use of words such as 'plethora' and 'carefully researched and detailed study' are very suggestive...

Possibly, I have no idea. But in the absence of any other work covering this area my pre-order stands. When your or my definitive and totally error-free study comes out, then I’ll replace Banks & Carter.

 

(Also, some mistakes in identifying the make up of LNER trains is hardly the historical scandal of the century. In fact, it’s not of any historical significance - it’s all mere antiquarianism, like the rest of the hobby!)

 

RichardT

Edited by RichardT
Can't type antiquarianism on my phone properly
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20 minutes ago, RichardT said:

Possibly, I have no idea. But in the absence of any other work covering this area my pre-order stands. When your or my definitive and totally error-free study comes out, then I’ll replace Banks & Carter.

 

(Also, some mistakes in identifying the make up of LNER trains is hardly the historical scandal of the century. In fact, it’s not of any historical significance - it’s all mere antiquanarianism, like the rest of the hobby!)

 

RichardT

 

What a bewildering comment.

 

I thought this guy worked for the NRM?

 

If so they need a cull of staff ASAP if that is their attitude. 

 

Jenkinson, Van Riemsdijk, Simmons, Ahrons, etc would be spinning in their graves at the suggestion that research was of no "historical significance".

 

 

 

Jason

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5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Jenkinson, Van Riemsdijk, Simmons, Ahrons, etc would be spinning in their graves at the suggestion that research was of no "historical significance".

That isn't what I said. And antiquarianism is great fun, and good brain exercise. As David Jenkinson, John VR and Jack Simmons would have agreed (I never discussed railway history with Ahrons, for obvious chronological reasons.)

 

That Guy

Edited by RichardT
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6 hours ago, RichardT said:

Possibly, I have no idea. But in the absence of any other work covering this area my pre-order stands. When your or my definitive and totally error-free study comes out, then I’ll replace Banks & Carter.

 

 

Concur with this bit.
 

Volume 1 was not perfect - I had correspondence with Mr Banks on one issue I had direct knowledge of, and to be fair he put a correction in his website - but the point is, despite the rumblings by people Banks (for Carter appears to have been able to keep a curiously low profile and left his co-author to take all the flak) seems to have upset over the years before and since, there was then and there has been no comparable book, let alone a better one, on the subject. If somebody reckons they can do better and get published - get on with it and you will have a sale to me; but if you think it’s easy think again …
 

As regards the “puff” on that website: booksellers need to sell books, so whether the actual words were penned by Banks himself we cannot know, but if he didn’t do it someone else would and in similar terms. It’s called ‘advertising’ and a degree of “puff” is not merely normal, it’s expected, and to affect to be surprised by that seems, to me, in itself suggestive of an ‘agenda’. 

 

Edited by Willie Whizz
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I don't know the ins and outs of this, but to complain that the author of a book has had a hand in promoting it appears to be bizarre in the extreme.

 

If anyone, as the author of a book, is not then "supposed" to promote it, then who can or should? Why on earth shouldn't an author promote their own work? Good grief, if an author hasn't got any belief in their work after writing it all and getting it published, then there really would be something wrong

 

And book promotion is not the same as a review is it? I agree that someone else would be writing that.

 

As regards mistakes in books, I wouldn't want to defend anything indefensible, and some books are certainly better than others, but it is bloody hard not to make them, especially in a large and complex work which I would judge this particular book to be.

 

I know this because I publish books, and they invariably have mistakes in, despite one's best efforts. I agree it would be better to produce perfect books, I am still trying.....

 

And as observed above, no one else has produced an alternative book on this subject, let alone a superior one.

 

To be fair, when it is one's own subject then these things probably irritate more than they would more general readers, which I guess is what is happening here?

 

 

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11 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

I don't know the ins and outs of this, but to complain that the author of a book has had a hand in promoting it appears to be bizarre in the extreme.

 

If anyone, as the author of a book, is not then "supposed" to promote it, then who can or should? Why on earth shouldn't an author promote their own work? Good grief, if an author hasn't got any belief in their work after writing it all and getting it published, then there really would be something wrong

 

And book promotion is not the same as a review is it? I agree that someone else would be writing that.

On the other hand, how many authors who write their own 'puff pieces' have sales suspended due to at least one complaint made under the Trade Descriptions Act that the contents do not match the description?

Edited by Pint of Adnams
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