Title: | National Freight Scene |
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Author: | n/a |
Publisher: | Leicester Railway Wagon Society |
Format: | Magazine |
Subject: | Wagons |
Category: | News |
Spec: | A5 stapled booklet, 12-32 pages, photocopied |
Publication date: | 1987-? |
Summary: | The first (and most likely only) periodical devoted to wagons, National Freight Scene emerged in 1987 and ran until at least 2000. |
Review: | This magazine started out as a bi-monthly 12-page, photocopied and stapled, A5 booklet with a cover price of 35p! Its stated aim was to complement the wagon news articles in the mainstream railway magazines by providing "general fleet movements, surveys of workings and yards and details such as livery changes and interesting survivors". It also included a few type profiles and drawings, though the photograph reproduction was often very poor. Its strength was defintely in collating reports and sightings of the older and/or more interesting wagons, and they went on to produce booklets on brake vans, internal users and crane match wagons as well as listing survivors of types such as the BR ferry vans. I only have issues up to number 21 but the magazine went on to at least issue 81 (in 2000), still to the same format but now with card covers and 32 pages. Perhaps as a reflection of the decreased variety in the wagon fleet by then, these later issues appear to be more just lists of routine sightings. |
Reviewed: | 26/03/2019 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)
This is issue 15 (from 1989). Most issues had very few photographs and, being photocopied, the quality was not great.
The contents were a mixture of news, observations and features on particular types, flows and locations. Although some of the early issues were produced using a word processor, most appear to have been typed.
A typical 'feature' was this profile of the BR ferry vans in issue 15. The introduction (shown here) was followed by 11 pages of listings, giving the last known status and location of each of the vans.
National Freight Scene was still going in late 2000, now up to issue 81 but still to the same basic format.
News and sightings still formed the bulk of the content. Indeed the inclusion of features seemed to have been dropped.
About half of the content was now given over to sightings lists, making for a not very interesting read. |
Notes: |
No notes have been left yet. ?There may be some notes posted but which have not yet been approved.
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Edits: | This item has not been edited.
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