Railway Magazine and the Tanzanian "discovery"

[John Ashworth]

Members of the East_African_Steam Yahoo group were rather surprised to see the following article in The Railway Magazine (October 2009, p 83):

Surprise find in Tanzania

It must be every enthusiast's wish to discover a locomotive no-one knew still existed.

Linda Sanders, during a walking holiday in Tanzania, did just that! She was escorted into an old engine shed in Dar es Salaam and shown North British 2-8-2 No. 2927, complete and still bearing its maroon livery. Built in 1955, it carries NBL worksplate No. 27442.

Linda wants to gauge how much interest there would be in restoring this handsome machine. Contact her at...

I wrote the following e-mail to The Railway Magazine, which sums up some of the facts and feelings expressed on the Yahoo group:

I've just received my October 2009 copy of Railway Magazine - the post
is a bit slow here in Nairobi.

On p 83, World Track Records, Sidelines, "Surprise find in Tanzania",
it's great to see East Africa getting a mention, but it really is
inaccurate to describe 2927 as "a locomotive no-one knew still
existed".

Amongst the East African steam community, both here and in England,
her presence is very well known. No mention of the blokes who restored
her to steam a few years ago? No reference to Rob Dickinson's
International Steam Page, where she is mentioned as recently as
January 2008? And if you Google "+2927 tanzania", you get several
references to her on the first page of Google results. She turns up
all over the web - I was idly surfing for pictures of 3020 yesterday
when a picture of 2927 being restored popped up. And your article has
generated a heated little discussion on the East African Steam Yahoo
group, another source where you could easily have checked whether
"no-one knew" whether 2927 "still existed".

Railway Magazine is my favourite railway magazine, and I always look
forward eagerly to its (late!) arrival each month, and for that I want
to express my thanks and congratulations. But really I'm disappointed
that you published this without checking your facts. Will you be
issuing a correction in the coming months?

Cheers!

They replied almost immediately:

John,

Sorry,

I'll see what I can do.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Stirrer. And that was such a romaticc story...............

[John Ashworth]

Romantic indeed - but totally inaccurate, especially for a magazine that prides itself as being a historical record. And some of the blokes on the East African Steam Yahoo group who have actually been involved in restoring and running 2927 were definitely less than impressed!

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Ah well.

Have I told you I found an engine at Capital Park the other day?

[John Ashworth]

Really? Was it one that nobody else was aware still existed?

Incidentally, I discovered a huge mountain on the Tanzania-Kenya border recently. I wonder if anybody else knows that it's there? I think I'll call it Kilimanjaro...

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

I think so.

Nathan was suprised and CHris J took several photos of it (which did not come out).
--------------------------------------

I found one too - on the same border.... Called Shombole....

[John Ashworth]

Other Railway Magazine readers also wrote in and received replies. One reply was quoted on the East African Steam Yahoo group:

Thanks for your e-mail. Several readers have commented that 2927 was not an
unknown engine, though it was undoubtedly unknown to our reporter Linda as
indeed it was to me!

I will try to find some suitable words for a future RM issue re checking claims
such as this. We all fall into traps like this sometimes. The internet is
usually a good place to check, but at RM we cannot possibly check all news
items, we just get so many.

It's surprising to hear a respected periodical saying that they "cannot possibly check all news items", especially as this one could be checked in just a few seconds with a simple internet search, and this led to another comment on the East African Steam group:

So I have to ask. What is the value today of printed news if it is not verified for accuracy......

[John Ashworth]

Another poster on the East African Steam group wrote this letter to The Railway Magazine:

Sir

As an old foreign reader of RM (through my brother's subscription which dates back to the late 60's when he went to UK to learn English), I am astonished by the weak reply received by several people about an alleged "steam locomotive find in TZ", which of course is nothing new at all.

I trust that you are reading what is being said about it under east_african_steam@yahoogroups.com and I have to agree with those who question the value of such journalism/information if that information is not checked for accuracy, which is nowadays usually a short Google or Wikipedia search away.

It is not so much the fact that a wrong info was published - it does catch us with any of us at times - but the very weak and unapologetic reply of your journalist which is surprising. What is wrong in saying "Sorry, my mistake, I should have checked better", especially if you try to put RM a cut above the "sensationalism" of your biggest competitor as is often implicitely claimed?

I do read RM with much interest, especially the news about preservation, and hope that you will see to it that the excellent standards of RM are maintained.

Best regards

[John Ashworth]

From The Railway Magazine, December 2009, p 91

Getting it right

Several readers have pointed out that Tanzanian steam loco No. 2927 was not "a surprise find" (RM Oct). Contributors are reminded to check that reports are accurate before sending them to The Railway Magazine.

A correction, but no apology for printing inaccurate material, and no acknowledgement that RM itself should check the accuracy of contributions.

[John Ashworth]

A further letter from me to the editor of RM:

Dear Nick,

Let me begin by saying that I love the Railway Magazine, so please
take the following criticism as being constructive.

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but the correction that appears on
p91 of the December 2009 issue regarding the Tanzanian "surprise find"
seems not only inadequate (there is no apology, I note) but calls into
question the credibility of RM. If you are a periodical which aims to
be a historical record that people can rely on, then reminding
contributors to check their own facts is not sufficient. Surely there
must be an obligation on RM itself to check its stories? On the World
Track Record page in the October 2009 issue there are only 6 stories
on the main page and 5 in the side panel. Surely it is not asking too
much of RM to do a check of the basic facts, especially as one can
Google "+2927 Tanzania" and within seconds get several references?
Incidentally the first begins, "Mike Dean organised the restoration of
2927 in Tanzania a few years ago", the third is a BBC story about 2927
from 2002, and the second is a link to Friends of the Rail, one of the
African rail enthusiast discussion boards where I'm afraid RM comes in
for a bit of flak on this issue. I'm not saying RM should check every
detail of every article - obviously you have to rely on the
professionalism of your specialist contributors and many will be
writing about arcane technical or historical issues which you cannot
reasonably check. But I would have thought that you would do a simple
background check on whether a news item is basically accurate or not.

I know from the East_African_Steam Yahoo group that you (or maybe
Colin) have received at least one other letter querying the lack of
fact-checking by RM rather than the actual mistake itself, and that's
the issue where I would be interested to hear your response. Putting
it bluntly (exaggerating even, to make the point), does the RM publish
any old rubbish which has an interesting title, or does it at least
check that there is some foundation to what it publishes? What
guarantee do we now have that items published in RM are in fact true
and accurate?

Cheers!
John

And a prompt and honest reply:

Dear Mr Ashworth

I cannot argue with any of the points you make! In our defence, there are
only two full-time journalists (one of whom is me!) in the office and we
therefore have to rely heavily on our correspondents. In this case, Colin
submitted the original story and I also allowed the contributor to word his
own explanation the following month (we can¹t be too hard on people!)

I think our correspondents are now aware that they mustn¹t accept facts at
face value but when you have the whole world to cover there¹s not always
sufficient time to check every single fact (even with the benefit of the
Internet) and we therefore have to accept some things in good faith. I hope
you will agree a) that we don¹t get many things wrong given the half million
or so words we publish every year and b) that at least we printed a
correction and didn¹t simply leave our readers in the dark.

Many thanks for your interest in this matter and for your support.

Yours in Railways

Nick Pigott
Editor