Fame in BRM

April BRM cover
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The April edition of British Railway Modelling features an article on Flockburgh.

The pictures look
very nice but I suspect the text might not keep everyone happy as I’ve tried to tell the story "warts and all". No doubt there will be a few people who will be horrified at this because it might put people off trying 3mm modelling. In my opinion, you do the scale no favours by having newcomers entering thinking everything will be as easy as working in OO.

I also think that telling people about the problems encountered makes for a more interesting article. To be honest, layout articles bore me to death as they all follow the same format – introduction, baseboard, wiring, scenics, rolling stock, conclusion & thanks. Because you have a bit subject to cover in a few short pages the detail is missed. To me the detail is what matters.

The trick when writing interesting articles is focusing on a single subject area. Nothing too small – very few people in a general magazine want to read six pages on how you built a single buffer – but individual buildings, items of rolling stock or a particular technique work OK.

I also try to make an effort to proof read the text a few times. This article has one spot where I think the text is clumsy and could be improved, pretty good for me as I’ve read past pieces once they have appeared in print and been appalled at the result. Proofing can’t (for me) be done on screen. I suspect this is why the blog postings can fumble but I’m not printing them all out – that is reserved for magazine work. This blog is much more immediate, reportage rather than reflection so it operates by different rules.

No doubt the grammar experts can pull my text apart. Tough. I’ll do my best but at the end of the day I won’t be faffing around over apostrophes if it gets in the way of the message. All I can hope to do is string some words together that people enjoy reading. The punter has paid his or her money for more than pretty pictures and the editor won’t be happy if the pictures they have commissioned are surrounded by little more than sub literate captions !

Of course if you do just want pretty pictures, in the same issue there are some nice shots of dock shunters. I’ve done a couple of the locos shown and the rest do look very modelable…

At the end of the day, it’s my train set in my words. I don’t know if anyone else like it and would be interested in comments. What do you want from a magazine ?