RAIL's Harris in bribery shocker!

This just in from Nigel Harris...

Thanks for telling the world about the 'top three' UK railway magazines, but could you maybe add a new post pointing out that RAIL is of course fortnightly while the other two are, of course, monthly or four weekly.

They publish half as often. Or we publish twice as often. Take your pick.

So, whilst realising that I run the risk of some excoriatingly sarcastic comeback from Eye, I’d just like to point out that whilst the other two titles reach about 35k buyers a month, RAIL finds 40K people thus prepared to support us each month, to whom we are exceedingly grateful.

It would be nice if you could also thank Eye regulars who buy RAIL for their support. It is very much appreciated by all in the Peterborough bunker.

In monthly sales, therefore, we lead the pack by quite some margin... well over 5,000 copy sales!

Our last reader research also showed a 'pass on' rate of five (meaning five readers read each copy) giving us a readership of 100k per issue....or 200k per month.

So, we’ll be aiming to persuade a few of those to buy their own copy in future! (Can you plug this as well?)

All of which puts a rather different complexion on the numbers.

Of course I am more than happy to stand you a lunch for pointing out these things...

Eye is obviously going up in the world. Cheapskate Wolmar only offered drinkies if Eye promoted his efforts!

UPDATE: This from Driver Potter...

I'll see Mr Harris's lunch for Free Advertising and raise him by a pudding - an individual Rolo Mousse and two spoons.

I'm not made of money, you know...

UPDATE: This from Billy Connections -

Nigel's team is well-versed in the "we sell the most, so we must be the best" mantra.

Well you can use statistics to prove anything.

The Sun is the best seller in the newspaper world but RAIL doesn't even offer a decent page three! (shurely ...but you wouldn't read the Sun for in-depth coverage. Ed)

The fact that each issue has a pass on rate of five means that either nobody wants to be seen with it on their desk or it is only read by skinflints too mean to buy their own copy!

As one senior railway MD once said about people who try to avoid paying their fares "The fact that they don't feel obliged to pay us for what we do shows the value they place on the service we provide."

Meanwhile can I put in a plug for a serious rail title... (No. Ed)

UPDATE: This from Bushy...

Whilst RAIL may sell 40,000 copies a month, are those copies going to 40,000 different people or the same 20,000 buying twice?

At least you can say that Railway Magazine is bought by 34,700 different people.

Of course Nigel's piece makes no mention of the fact that two years ago RAIL was selling 23,000 copies per issue.

So using Nigel's logic; RAIL has lost 6,000 readers a month in the last two years.

UPDATE: This, up to a point, from Lord Copper...

If, as Nigel points out Rail is read by 40,000 people a month, that must mean that 20,000 buy each issue, decide they don't like it, only for a fresh 20,000 to buy the next issue, and so on.

The good news for the Panjandrum of Peterborough is that with a UK population of around 60 million, this policy will be successful for another 3000 issues or 125 years which should see out the ever youthful editor's career.

And that may be a conservative estimate because the population grew by 400,000 in 2008 - which represents another 20 issues covered.

The only flaw in the statistics is the number of elderly people who die without taking their turn at reading Rail.

Perhaps copies could be provided as part of free health care proposals.

Harris returns!

Nigel Harris has returned to the blogosphere and he's in fine form too.

Nigel writes...

It therefore shocked me that behind the apparent sharp focus and some very expensive TV commercials, a toxic culture of complacency - arrogance, even – seemingly contaminates NR's approach to this appalling risk.

That'll be one less Christmas card for Iain Coucher to sign.

Harris - Normal service to resume shortly

RAIL head honcho Nigel Harris assures Eye that normal blogging will resume shortly.

Recent disruption, we are told, has been due to annual leave, National Rail Awards, staff holidays and sorting out The Scottish Question!

Eye can't wait for the latest issue of the magazine!

Nigel Harris on You and Yours

***Eye readers with a wireless, or internet connection, may wish to tune into "You and Yours" now, on Radio 4, where Nigel Harris will be ruminating on NXEC's collapse***

Skimbleshanks agrees

Telegrammed by J Alfred Prufrock
This from Nigel's blog over at Rail...

I’ve been a railway journalist since 1981 and that’s not how I remember it. The nationalised railway was declining fast in terms of usage and whilst privatisation has many faults it’s a fact that it is now carrying 1.1bn people a year in more than 20,000 trains a day, in trains of around 13/14 years old.

But what's this?

1952 total passenger miles 20.5 billion

1981 (Nigel arrives) total passenger miles 18.5 billion (down 10.5% on 1952)

1988/89 (Height of the last economic boom) total passenger miles 21.3 billion (up 15% on 1981)

1994/95 (Depth of subsequent recession) total passenger miles 17.8 billion

1997/98 (Gordon Brown ends Boom and bust) total passenger miles 21.5 billion

So perhaps not quite as serious a decline as some might think.

Otherwise one quite agrees with Nigel's point about linguistic aberrations.

After all, Skimbleshanks was a railway cat!

UPDATE: This just in from Sir William Pollitt...

Mr Prufrock may be confusing apples with pears.

The railways were either declining, or they weren’t.

There’s widespread agreement that the railways were privatised with ‘continued management of decline’ in mind'.

So were the railways not declining in the 1980-1995 period?

Surely we didn’t imagine all those double turnouts turning into wretched single lead junctions, all those double track routes singled, stations like Princes Risborough, and Newton Abbot, where services both ways were concentrated on one platform, the withdrawal of Speedlink?

All that rationalisation was a success, was it?

Perhaps not.

Update: This poetic response from Griddlebone...

I think my cousin Skimble - who is now not quite so nimble,
Would take issue with your claim of "no decline".
When his travellers were a'bed, lets remember what was said,
Of their journey down the old West Coast Main Line.

"They were fast asleep at Crewe and so they never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
They were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle.
Where he greets the Station Master with elation"

Now, can we say that today? No, more likely there's delay
As the OLE's got blown off in the wind;
Or those blessed signal circuits, have gone wonky once again; its
Time the wretched lot of them were binned.

We're 90 down at Crewe - so I hear you say "What's new?"
And we're waiting for the Thunderbird to couple..."clunk"
Yes, it's clear we're off via Settle, hope the steward's got a kettle!
I think I'll go and cat-nap in my bunk.

But wait....some things never cease - we're still going via Dumfries
And this journey, far from sleepy, is a mess.
Should I blame My Lord Adonis? or more likely Network Rail?
No, they'll just go and blame the dear old LMS.

PS - on Skimble's trains all coaches were "quiet coaches"

UPDATE: Captain Deltic wades in...

It is certainly the case that the original (old BR) management of Railtrack talked of managing decline.

But the structure of franchising, and let's be generous and assume it was intentional, meant that the only way to make money was by growing ridership.

We all know what happened when Stagecoach thought the key to success was cutting costs - and promptly found they were cutting into muscle and bone, not fat.

What was declining was the railways' share of the total travel market and it would be interesting to plot this over the last 20 years.

UPDATE: This from Nigel Harris over at Rail...

Hmm.

What an interesting discussion.

The Captain is right about Railtrack pronouncements (as if I’d dare suggest otherwise!) but I also recall Government and everyone else accepting that the graphs for rail ridership specifically were all heading downward too, hence my very general comment.

It would be good to get to the bottom of it for the fuller picture, and comparing rail’s figure compared with travel figures generally would indeed play a part.

Meanwhile back to axle counters, old signalling cabling and days of 21% punctuality......no prizes for guessing which route I’m writing about for the next issue......

UPDATE: Captain Deltic asks a question...

Great minds think alike.

I am subbing next month's column, in which a number not unadjacent to 21% also appears, and Nigel's comment has prompted the thought can we reasonably talk about 21% reliability?

Shouldn't it be 79% lateness?

Rail spellbound!

Has Rail editor, Nigel Harris, been got at?

Famous for having described the IEP as the Camel Class and roundly condemning it, the great man has now sprung to its defence, both in print and on-line.

"My sources insist that IEP could work as I’ve outlined." says Nigel.

As the only possible 'source' for such a view is Marsham Street there are fears that Nigel's been bewitched by the Prince of Daftness!

UPDATE: Nigel Harris writes...

Now then, now then, now then FC, please read what I’ve said – not what you think I‘ve said!

Please note liberal use of words like ‘could; and ‘if’ - my Comment piece is full of qualifications. Circumstances have changed – so I’ve potentially changed my view, which is what a sensible man does, surely?

As it stood, IEP was indeed the wrong answer to the wrong question...but in the context of coupling IEP with GW electrification, then it’s a different question and therefore potentially different answer.

But only, I stressed, IF THE TRAIN WORKS!

Contrary to your mischievous implication, I have not gone over to the dark side. My buckle will continue to swash, so fear not.

With best wishes to your illustrious online organ.

A brace of Harris

Bowler tip to Nigel Harris for this...

Chortle...