QUOTE (Chrisgus @ 9 Feb 2006, 09:28)If you dislike thia publication so much,why buy it or indeed bother to read it.Ignoring it has to be better for your stress levels
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I originally started reading it back in the days when the main focus of the magazine was the real world of big trains when the modelling bit was about 6 pages long and 4 of those were adverts the other 2 being progress reports on the Mostyn layout. The magazine is now more model than real railway and that is disappointing. I suppose that they got sick of regurgitating the same news and photo's as the half dozen other railway magazines and decided to branch out rather than compete. In light of the amount i spend each month on magazines both model and real railway related perhaps it is time to kick it into touch.
The reviews are one thing but when they see fit to sneer about a local journalist from a local rag getting something wrong about a rail exhibition and brand him a moron one has to wonder whether that is welcome in the model rail press or is another example of self worship from the writers who are very quick to blow their own trumpet "we got bachmann to retool for the class 37/0 being the best example and we all know how much "better" that offering is.Then to print it under the pathetic pseudonym rather than the authors real name just rubs salt into the wound.
That is my main "boiling point" to use their own terminology and i dare say if you plumbed me into a rake of steam heated coaches the passengers'd be stripped to the waist by the time we left the station.
I hope the 3rd attempt at a class 37 doesn't go as badly as the last 2 though i won't hold my breath. I hope heljan rectify the class 33 roof but again i won't hold my breath. I hope rail express sort out their attitude problem and start concentrating on bettering themselves as a magazine before criticising others(getting it in the shops on the day it is due would be a start) but i'll probably die from asphyxiation before that happens.
The sad thing is that one of the best layouts i have seen at an exhibition was reviewed in model rail express and that so far has to be my favourite article in the magazine in its current format. Wibdenshaw which is a what if layout based in my home town of Bradford.A good review of a very nice layout, more like this please!
Perhaps i'll have to start doing the WHsmiths library visit before i buy in future!