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About 10 years ago I lost my 50 year archive of British railways modeling magazines due to a misunderstanding. As I'm in France it's very hard to replace them and  at my age I'd not want to start again. But there are a few inspirational articles I'd quite like get copies of.

 

Now next week I'll be back in the UK working for about a month on one of my rare visits. I've been told that very few preservation societies and clubs have old magazines for sale like they used to have.  I'm wondering if there are any public libraries in the North west that have an archive of old magazines that I can browse ?

 

Of course the next problem is trying to sort out which issues I want to find - I don't think there is an index of British magazines like there is of the US ones ?

 

Tom 

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Of course the next problem is trying to sort out which issues I want to find - I don't think there is an index of British magazines like there is of the US ones ?

 

Tom 

 

There are some partial indexes on line. Try these:

 

Railway Modeller - 1960-2012

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idEg4ai1EZ281Nk9LNHVaalFoRzEzcUE&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

Model Railway Constructor - 1968-1969

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idElWYnRHZmtPYkdneXdtN0NzU00weVE&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

Model Railways 1971-1979

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idC1WcUNqaGY1cENnb25hazlrRVBtZXc&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

There may be others out there, hopefully someone else will pitch in with a link. 

 

Edit: This chap has a good selection of model mags at reasonable prices:

http://andibradley.com/railmags/index.php/cPath/331

 

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Tom,

I have several (hundreds) of various titles which I am about to offer for sale for a few pence each. If you want to PM me, I have a handwritten but legible list I could e-mail : who knows, some you seek may be in my spare room!

Kind regards,

Jock.

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I haven't used it for about 20years, but the British Library Document Supply Service used to be able to supply photocopies of articles from magazines:-

http://www.bl.uk/articles

 

I used it for my college thesis via the University library but I also got some model railway articles from US magazines while I was at it!

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Tom,

 

Not in the North West, (Midlands) but our Club has a pretty extensive collection of all the modelling magazines including MRJ, MRC, RM, as well as things like Backtrack and Industrial Archive.

 

If you discover any articles, which you want copies of,  just PM me and I can arrange to get them scanned and sent to you.

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About 10 years ago I lost my 50 year archive of British railways modeling magazines due to a misunderstanding. As I'm in France it's very hard to replace them and  at my age I'd not want to start again. But there are a few inspirational articles I'd quite like get copies of.

 

Now next week I'll be back in the UK working for about a month on one of my rare visits. I've been told that very few preservation societies and clubs have old magazines for sale like they used to have.  I'm wondering if there are any public libraries in the North west that have an archive of old magazines that I can browse ?

 

Of course the next problem is trying to sort out which issues I want to find - I don't think there is an index of British magazines like there is of the US ones ?

 

Tom 

 

Tom - we can probably help out with some back issues if you let me know which ones you want. I can also recommend the Vintage Carraige Trust at Ingrow West on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway - they have a superb selection of old railway magazines.

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I'm a Narrow gauge/light railway fan.

 

Things I'd particularly like to find again 

 

Closely watched trains + more closely watched trains -  a freelance pre-group TT scale layout, 3 articles two in late MRN's and one in Model Railways.

 

An 2 part article on realistic freelancing in an 63-ish MRN

 

Auger valley railway a OOn3 Irish line 

 

Thissledom and Fishook (?) another ng line 

 

An article by Derek Naylor of Aire Valley railway fame on building railbuses in an early 60's MRN - I have all the other AVR articles now.

 

 George Iliffe Stokes articles 

 

Any Irish 3ft drawings

 

The MRN series of drawings of British light railways  

 

February 1969 RM  9/12mm gauge layout  the Clun Valley Tramway

 

Isle of Man Railway layout  built by a group of Manchester MRS members. 64-ish RM

 

Dennis Allenden  articles on French narrow gauge 

 

Any other quirky narrow gauge line !

 

Anything on colonial narrow gauge

 

A couple of obscure ones - there was some photos of a model  Welsh village in I think trackside photos in MRN, but not the rest of the model railway.

The Narrow Gauge Journal - A5 home printed mag that ran I think only 6 issues 

 

Thanks in appreciation to anyone that can provide scans of any of those or copies of the magazine - even the date of the issue would help!

 

Tom

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I'd suggest getting in touch with any model railway clubs in the area. Most have a library of old mag - something libraries ans museusm tend not to bother with. If it's old mags you want, they would probably happily fill your suitcase with them as donations are always coming in and no one wants to buy them! Preserved railways also have this problem.

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There are some partial indexes on line. Try these:

 

Railway Modeller - 1960-2012

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idEg4ai1EZ281Nk9LNHVaalFoRzEzcUE&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

Model Railway Constructor - 1968-1969

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idElWYnRHZmtPYkdneXdtN0NzU00weVE&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

Model Railways 1971-1979

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ala-SR7l2w7idC1WcUNqaGY1cENnb25hazlrRVBtZXc&usp=sharing#gid=0

 

There may be others out there, hopefully someone else will pitch in with a link. 

 

Edit: This chap has a good selection of model mags at reasonable prices:

http://andibradley.com/railmags/index.php/cPath/331

Those lists look like they've been taken from here, with many additions.

 

http://www.southcom.com.au/~grahamj/railinx.txt

 

But, can your spreadsheets be added to, Stovepipe? Assuming those are yours.

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Widnes.

 

The library there has a large railway collection (apparently a relic of some long-abandoned project about specialisation within regions). A search on the online catalogue (http://kohalibrary.halton.gov.uk/find/books/) reveals that they have the MRN for most of the 50s and 60s, not to mention some very old ones including Volume 1 of 1925.

 

I spent a lot of Saturday mornings there a couple of years ago researching an article. Books are kept in a special railway room, most magazines you have to fill out a request form at the desk and one of the staff goes and fetches it for you. I found them very helpful. I'm not sure what their stance on copying is, though: especially from the bound volumes, which might not lie flat on a copier. I was just photographing the pages that I was interested in, but that obviously wouldn't work with scale drawings and that sort of thing.

 

Jim

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Ah good, was hoping to find a library where I can browse these, looking for things, though it's not an easy library to get to for me. Will try the Manchester and Merseyside clubs too.

 

Tom 

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I haven't used it for about 20years, but the British Library Document Supply Service used to be able to supply photocopies of articles from magazines:-

http://www.bl.uk/articles

 

I used it for my college thesis via the University library but I also got some model railway articles from US magazines while I was at it!

 

I used the BLDSS recently for a photocopy of an article in a Canadian university law journal. It cost me £15 for a bog-standard copy (deluxe copies over twice as much), but I stumped up because it was something I particularly wanted and because it would have cost more in time and money to travel to London or Harrogate to peruse the original.

Anyone wanting to dispose of magazines or books might consider donating them to the local university or FE college. The University of Sheffield took ten years of "Athletics Weekly" when I told the dubious librarian that they would be of interest to anyone studying sports medicine (I can imagine some student medic wondering who was this "bluebottle" whose name was heavily underlined in red in some of the clubs race results listings). Magazines dealing with the railway prototype could be of use to engineers, historians etc; modelling magazines perhaps to future architects for advice on model buildings ("Well, Allan Downes does it like this"!)

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Tom

 

Irish narrow gauge with Drawings.  I can scan these for you if you pm me your email address.

 

 

Type           Description                 Magazine     Year    Month    Page

Locomotive Donegal 4-4-4 Railway Modeller 1986 July 282

Railcar CDR Drewry Railcar - County Donegal Railways Joint Committee Railway Modeller 1987 February 81

Railcar County Donegal Rly narrow gauge early railcars Railway Modeller 1987 September 386

Railcar County Donegal Rly narrow gauge railcars Railway Modeller 1987 December 526

Railcar County Donegal Rly narrow gauge railcars Railway Modeller 1988 January 34

Coach Donegal Railway all first and all third bogie coach .Model Railways 1979 February 116

Wagon Irish vans and open for Cork, Brandon and South coast BRM 2002 January 51

Locomotive Irish CDRJR class 5a 2-6-4 T Railway Modeller 1984 December 488

Locomotive 4-4-0 T  Irish - Cork and Muskerry Light Railway Railway Modeller 1985 February 80

Locomotive 0-6-2 tank - Irish - Clogher Valley Railway Modeller 1985 May 206

Locomotive irish BoBo diesel - West Clare Railway Modeller 1985 June 249

Locomotive 4-6-2 T Kerr Stuart for Irish narrow gauge lines Railway Modeller 1985 August 329

Locomotive Schull and Skibbereen 4-4-0 T  Irish NG Railway Modeller 1986 January 31

Railcar Clougher Valley railcar - Irish Narrow gauge Railway Modeller 1987 November 478

wagon Irish West Clare Horse Box .Model Railways 1972 February 348

Locomotive West Clare 2-6-2 T Railway Modeller 1986 October 433

Railcar Clougher Valley railcar - Irish Narrow gauge Railway Modeller 1987 November 478

 

 

I cannot specifically tack down Allenden articles.  If you can give some clues of what you are looking for, I may be able to find them or at least propose alternative sources.

 

 

Sorry about the lack of formatting for the list.

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That's an impressive list Andy, looks like considerable effort went into that reply.

 

The only French narrow gauge by Dennis Allenden I specifically remember was "The Cripples of Neuilly", which appeared in the April 1973 Model Railways.

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I used the BLDSS recently for a photocopy of an article in a Canadian university law journal. It cost me £15 for a bog-standard copy (deluxe copies over twice as much), but I stumped up because it was something I particularly wanted and because it would have cost more in time and money to travel to London or Harrogate to peruse the original.

 

I thought that may be the case by now! When I started my course requests had to be approved by your department, but later it was changed so that you could have as many as you wanted, but you had to pay a pound each for them. Presumably the University covered the rest.

 

On a different note, The Southern E-Group has SR related articles from Railway Magazine online here:-

http://www.semgonline.com/RlyMag/index.html

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That's an impressive list Andy, looks like considerable effort went into that reply.

 

The only French narrow gauge by Dennis Allenden I specifically remember was "The Cripples of Neuilly", which appeared in the April 1973 Model Railways.

Much less effort than you might expect.

 

I have a file that allows me to find back all of those articles of interest, which is described here:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/86180-how-do-people-store-thier-copies/

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A searchable index for MRJ can be found here:

 

http://www.modelrailwayjournal.com/

 

Back copies can be bought here:

 

http://titfield.co.uk/WildSwan/WSR_MRJ.htm

 

 

I believe that publishers of periodicals, magazines, etc. are required to send a copy to the British Library. Presumably they maintain some sort of record but I doubt it would go into too much detail.

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