It seems we've made a couple of errors in the latest issue of Hornby Magazine, particularly in relation to the colour light signalling article, but I'd like to take the opportunity to put the magazine's point of view across.
As I'm sure you can imagine, we all work hard to ensure Hornby Magazine is as accurate as possible and well presented at the same time. We take every step possible to ensure that the content is correct. However, from time to time errors do creep in, sometimes forced by our reference sources. Much has been written about railways but our writers weren't around to experience every development in the BR steam era first hand, so we have to rely on second hand information in many cases. Wherever possible, we check the source and will be happy to publish corrections where significant errors inadvertently occur.
The signalling article, as the headline suggests, was aimed as a basic guide to colour light signalling. The real railway is open to many variations in signalling and we would never aim to cover the entire subject in one four page article. The article produced merely skims the surface of a complex subject which could be, and has been, turned into a book all of its own.
With this in mind we feel that the article achieved its aims, but equally there are errors in the text.
The red light always appears at the bottom of a two-aspect colour light signal as shown in the diagram on page 47 of issue 12. The fact that the caption states that the aspects appear the other way round is simply a typing error which, in fairness, should have been spotted before publication.
With reference to the terminology used - 'amber' and 'feather' for example - we used these terms to keep the language simple so that everyone, and not just those with a thorough understanding of signalling, could understand the subject in its basic form. The use of the word 'amber' is unfortunate, but many modellers and railway enthusiasts do use it.
Hornby Magazine is produced by a small team of highly dedicated and enthusiastic writers and a group of proof readers, myself included. However, we do work to tight deadlines in order to produce a monthly magazine and, sometimes, in the busy days in the lead up to deadline, the large number of pages which make up Hornby Magazine have to be processed quicker than we would like. That, unfortunately, is a fact of working with magazines.
With ever tighter deadlines to keep things topical to suit the ever more discerning readership, we simply don't have the luxury of time to keep re-proofing pages and asking others to check them as well. Sometimes corrections are done last minute on screen and as one forum member has pointed out, this can make it difficult to spot errors. Just like the readers, we sometimes spot errors on the pages of the magazine as soon as we get copies and kick ourselves that we didn't pick them up before. But the human brain reads what it thinks it has written and is prone to 'over ride' some smaller typos.
I hope you will all continue to enjoy Hornby Magazine and rest assured that we will be stepping up another gear with the aim of producing higher quality issues in the future.
Happy modelling.
Mike Wild, Editor.
