Whoops, there's a problem
Front cover of Backtrack Magazine, February 2021 Issue
Enlarge

Backtrack Magazine, February 2021 Issue

print edition Digital Edition
Buy or sell copies of this magazine!

Shown below are independent sellers with this item for sale. All sellers area UK-Based with identical shipping costs.

As a buyer, your order & payment is securely processed by Magazine Exchange - the seller just receives your address details in order to dispatch the item directly to you.

You may purchase multiple items from different sellers in a single order - we'll sort it all out!

Details of this magazine:
  • Number of Pages98
  • Shipping Weight kg0.30
  • Shipping Cost
Contents Listing: See below
Add to My Wanted List
Sell this item
Price Condition Seller's Description About this Seller Ready to Buy?
£4.00 Good Ragsandmags
Feedback: - (0)
Add to cart
Buy or sell copies of this magazine!

Digital Editions of magazine issues are the same as the paper version except they are delivered in electronic form for reading on your computer, tablet or phone.

Different suppliers offer Digital Editions in different file formats and they may be available to purchase and download directly from Magazine Exchange or from the website of an external retailer.

Details of this magazine:
  • Number of Pages98
  • Shipping Weight kg0
  • Shipping Cost
Digital Edition Feedback:
  • “It’s so convenient to be able to read the magazine straight away...” more>
Sell this item
Digital editions from other Retailers (External website opens in new window; file purchase & viewing procedures vary):
Price Digital Format Seller Free Preview Comments Ready to Buy?
£3.99 Pocketmags Propreitory Pocketmags   Available on Phone, PC or Tablet
Digital editions from Magazine Exchange (Purchase using normal Basket / Checkout system, then download & view file):
Price Digital Format Seller Free Preview Comments Ready to Buy?
£1.49 Watermarked PDF world-mags Professional quality PDF
Contents Listing - Articles & Features in this issue

Return to Glasgow Central - colour spread of more of Gavin Morrison photographs.
Coach Working on LMS lines in South Wales - by Clive Carter.
Complaints about Engine Whistles - Alistair F. Nisbet reveals strained relations between railways and their neighbours.
The Calne Branch: Part Two - Mike Fenton concludes his history of this Wiltshire branch line up to its closure.
British Railways Class 4 '76000s' - three colour pages of this useful Standard 2-6-0 class.
Northolt East Junction 1973 - Richard Clarke describes working at this signal box on the GW/GC Joint Line.
On the Great Central in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire - archive photos from the John Spencer Gilks collection.
The Rise and Fall of Ilfracombe Station: Part One - John Jarvis describes the planning and infrastructure of this LSWR route from Barnstaple.
The LNWR Amalgamation with the LYR in 1921 - by Jeffrey Wells

Readers'Forum

Book Reviews
 
Cover - Brand-new and allocated to Trafford Park shed, BR Class 4 2-6-0 No.76089 heads a local near New Mills Central in June 1957. (W. Oliver/Colour-Rail.com BRM1013)
Article Snippets
Article Snippets
Noises off:
'Noise pollution' has become something of a vogue term for unwelcome intrusion into the general quiescence and during the long lockdown there was much ado about there being less of it due to the reduced amount of road and air traffic. Ordinarily, in most parts of the country background noise exists and we become inured to it to the extent that we hardly notice it - until it stops.
What might bother us more are the sudden, short-lasting, attention-grabbing repetitive noises which break into our world with unwelcome disturbance: hole-in-the road drilling, electric lawnmowers and hedge trimmers, motor cycle revving, hammering and sawing by builders and do-it-yourselfers, the persistent yapping of the neighbourhood Highland terrier - you can name your own special dislikes. The street sounds of the average town are the accompaniment to the passing day and I suppose it isn't any different in principle to what echoed around us in earlier generations. Would the clip-clopping of horses, whether pulling rumbling carriages, delivery wagons or rag-and-bone carts, not be as annoying as the engine-running of modern cars and lorries, all leaving their own physical pollution as well as their din? The resolute cries of street vendors offering hot pies, muffins and hot cross buns, or newspaper sellers shouting out lurid headlines or racing results, the proclamations of town criers, the night-watchmen waking folk from their slumber to announce that it was one o'clock in the morning and all was well - peace and quiet have long been hard to find!

So whether it be the sweet trilling of songbirds or the incessant roar of motor traffic, 'noises off' have to be lived with. An article this month on the subject of 'Complaints about Engine Whistles' draws attention to the range of intrusive sounds which came with the railways to interfere with the lives of the people who lived close by them. Engine whistles could, it seems, be a trial to sensitive ears, but railways were a 24-hour operation and what might be more tolerable during the daytime could perhaps incite rising irritation at night. The thing was, though, that whistling was not an indulgence between friendly railwaymen or an alert to a driver's wife to have his dinner ready; on the contrary, it was an important method of communication between engine crews and guards, shunters, signalmen and track workers or, vitally, as a warning to the public of possible danger. The locations at which whistling had to be performed and the number of blasts which had to be given were often specified in the rules and could they could deliver a particular message or instruction. While we now take for granted instant personal communication by telephone devices, it took some time before electrical apparatus reduced the need for whistling.
The railway was, in truth, a noisy place besides the shrieks which so infuriated the letter writers. Locomotives blowing off steam, trains starting away from a standstill, wheelslip under treacherous rail or weather conditions, the clanking of buffers during the shunting of wagons, fog signals - all were things which might have incurred the disgruntlement of the railway's neighbours.

Back in the day our family home was the width of a road and a sports field from a railway line which was on an ascending gradient from Bury towards Bolton. On warm summer nights with the window open I could lie abed and listen to the beat of the exhaust as determined locomotives climbed away from the town towards us with their heavy freight trains and then, as the sound gradually receded into the distance, stillness resumed. I could also hear the town's goods depot being shunting during the small hours - the sounds of buffers clanging and engines chuffing were quite distinct even though the yard was well over a mile away and on the opposite side of the house from my bedroom window. The working railway would doubtless have been more of a disruption to those who lived much nearer to it than we did, but it is likely they just became accustomed to it - and I don't recall these activities being punctuated by excessive hooting and tooting. The question could have been put as to why someone would live next to a railway if the noise emanating therefrom was such a vexation. A simple answer could be that properties so situated might have been cheaper to buy or rent. Problems have continued in different forms: around 1980 when 'Deltic' diesels were allocated to York complaints were made from across the city about the high-pitched humming of their engines running in the depot yard during the night hours. But there is much less whistling, or rather the sounding of horns these days, as modern means of communication between railway workers have diminished the need for it. However, the trackside notice to instruct drivers to activate their audible warnings is still the letter 'W' -Whistle!
A few jottings from the Dept, of Administrative Affairs to end with. As stated in the editorial last month, the aim remains to return Backtrack to its 64-page content just as soon as possible. Although practical considerations called for the 48pp version this month, the next issue will run to 56 pages where I hope it will stay until stability in high street trade encourages that move forward into the better times we're led to believe are ahead. And finally but by no means least, with the January issue we bid farewell to our typesetter Ian Luckett who has decided to stand down after 30 years of preparing often complicated texts and tables ready for the design process. Thanks, Ian, and well done indeed!
Adverts and Links based on this content



Backtrack

Latest issue of Backtrack

Latest issue available now!

Advertisement