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Title:Rail Express Review image
Author:n/a
Publisher:Foursight Publications / Mortons Media
Format:Magazine
Subject:Railways
Category:News
Spec:A4 (and larger), 72-116 pages, mainly colour photos
Publication date:1996 to present
Summary:Launched in 1996, Rail Express magazine is probably the best for coverage of modern rolling stock news, operations, histories and photographs. It also regularly has news and features about wagons.
Review:As the re-titled Rail magazine tended more towards the business aspects of the industry, rival Rail Express was launched to cater for the enthusiasts. From the first issue there were one or two pages devoted to wagons under the title of 'Wallace's Wonderful World of Wagons'. As the name suggests, these were written by Bob Wallace, formerly of Rail. The coverage was pretty much as per Wagons Roll but the photos were in colour from the outset. There was a slight hiatus in 2003 when the authorship passed from Bob Wallace to Rob Volland and then to Gareth Bayer but the column continues and is perhaps the best source of up-to-date news on the current wagon scene. Roger Butcher's column on departmentals also moved across from Rail and appeared every month for the first few years. Rail Express is to be recommended for including details of relevant wagons in various articles about freight flows, both in the main section and in the modelling pages that later became a regular feature. Beyond wagons, there is extensive coverage of loco, unit and coach developments, news about operators and services, excellent photographs and interesting features on current and historical (while sticking to a 'no steam' policy) trains and operations.
Reviewed:12/04/2009 by Thomas Young (Comments made by others can appear in the notes section towards the bottom of this page)
Sample pages:(Click on any image to view full-sized in a new window)
Page image The cover of the January 2007 issue.
Page image From the very first issue, there was a regular column providing news on the wagon fleets, written by somebody called Bob Wallace...
Page image A departmentals column by Roger Butcher was a regular feature for the first couple of years, employing his usual mixture of news updates, location reviews, nostalgia and a splash of humour.
Page image As well as main news stories and features, each issue covered rolling stock developments in a 'class-by-class' format. Multiple units and coaches were not neglected.
Page image Detailed features on particular wagon types appeared every few months, usally written by one of the 'big name' experts and often presented in the modelling section.
Page image 23 years on and each issue still has a page or two of wagon news. Since late 2003 these have been produced by Gareth Bayer.
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