Editor James Abbott Circulation 16,000 Founder Geoffrey Freeman Allen | Categories Rail transport Publisher Key Publishing Ltd | |
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Frequency Monthly (fourth Friday) | ||
Modern Railways is a British monthly magazine covering the rail transport industry which was published by Ian Allan until March 2012, and Key Publishing since then. It has been published since 1962.
It has always been targeted at both railway professionals and serious amateurs, an aim which derives from its origins as an amalgamation of the enthusiast magazine Trains Illustrated and the industry journal The Locomotive in the hands of its first editor Geoffrey Freeman Allen.
It is currently edited by James Abbott. Regular contributors include Roger Ford, Alan Williams and Tony Miles.
First edition
The first edition of Modern Railways was published in January 1962 as Volume XV, no. 160 in a sequence continuing from Trains Illustrated. It featured a preface letter from Dr Richard Beeching, then Chairman of the British Transport Commission, who wrote: "The thousands who read your journal every month derive from it a great deal of pleasure and useful information about the activities of British Railways. I feel that we share common ground, for your readers are our friends as well as yours, and we are helped by your success in holding and enlarging their interest. In particular we have come to expect from you, and to value, the kind of well-informed comment on our affairs which is the mark of a lively and competent magazine. Like the railways, Trains Illustrated is now moving towards a new era and I think it wholly appropriate that you should choose Modern Railways as your new title. What is merely a new name for you is an eagerly-sought objective for us. May we both go forward to new and rewarding success." A feature article in the edition analysed peak traffic operations at Reading railway station in the days leading up to Christmas 1960, stating: "Reading...has neither a desperate shortage of platforms nor a crippling complication of layout...".