Re: 'Australian Railway Enthusiast"

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Greg Triplett wrote:

> I was horrified at the latest issue. I've been watching the
> quality of the magazine steadily declining over the last few
> issues and just when I thought it couldn't possibly get
> worse, it did.

> Rather than discuss these matters here perhaps we should
> write to the editor.

Have you noticed that in this age of electronic communications, a lot of the railway magazine editors (not Rail News Victoria, I hasten to add) ignore the advantage of email
for all sorts of reasons. Possibly in these days of rapidly declining standards they assume that most people who would email to complain probably couldn't be bothered to
actually write and post a letter. The declining standards are possibly caused by the very few people who are actually willing to devote time to these mags. And time is a
very precious commodity these days, there are many demands on our precious relaxation time. For example, reading newsgroups can take a lot of time.

These same editors of course ignore email at there peril because many a budding author might email a short piece (for the same reasons as discussed above) but are not
inclined to post the same piece. Also may authors are put of by the poor editing that is rife today. Editors, and there are very few around with the time to devote, need to
know a lot about their subject in order to "get it right". Errors are perpetuated for eternity, corrections published down the track are most likely ignored by the majority,
and possibly because they do not understand the need for history to be as correct as we can make it.

My recent letter to a well known magazine highlighted my concerns over editing skills. I will readily admit that when it comes to steam engines, my knowledge is extremely
flimsy and in areas of non-signalling technical details equally so. I rely on editors getting suspicious facts checked out by those who DO know, and they are around. My
letter received a couple of replies directly which were of the typical winge type about me winging and not volunteering, but most of the personal replies I had were positive
and suggested that things have been needed to be said for a long time. And these came from well respected railway enthusiasts.

David Langley.