Coronavirus impact – update, 20 March

In view of the constantly evolving situation with Coronavirus, below is an update on the current situation and its impact on Modern Railways magazine and its associated events.

Our April issue is on sale on Thursday 26 March and has already been despatched to the printers. At present we are expecting this to be available through all the usual channels and subscriber copies to be delivered as normal, albeit postal services in some countries may be delayed. For more information, please click here https://bit.ly/2IUXR5I.

We are currently working on the May issue of the magazine with a view to this being available as usual, but this situation may change. Further updates will be provided in due course, and you can keep in touch with our latest updates and see what we are doing to keep distribution as normal as possible by visiting www.keypublishing.com/FAQs. We are investigating a range of contingency plans should distribution of the magazine through normal channels not prove feasible, and we will keep you updated on this, including via the Modern Railways website and social media feeds.

In view of the current situation we have postponed the three Modern Railways 4th Friday Club events scheduled to take place prior to the summer:

  • The Rail in Wales and the West conference in Bristol planned for Friday 27 March will now take place on Thursday 3 September.
  • The Rail in the North conference in York planned for Thursday 30 April will now take place on Friday 2 October.
  • The Railway Industry Innovation Awards in London planned for Friday 26 June will be rescheduled to the autumn, with a provisional date of Friday 23 October. We are still accepting entries for the awards but a revised deadline for these to be received will be confirmed in due course.

The Rail in the Midlands conference planned to take place in the autumn will be rescheduled for early 2021. At present we expect the Golden Spanner awards on Friday 27 November to take place as planned. Details of these changes will be fully updated on the 4th Friday Club website (www.4thfriday.co.uk) early next week.

At present we are planning that the Modern Railways RVE expo in Derby on Thursday 5 November will take place as planned but will provide further information about this in due course. A Modern Railways RVE networking event was due to take place alongside the 4th Friday Club Rail in the North conference on 30 April – we expect this to take place at the same time as the rescheduled conference on 2 October.

We are grateful to our readers, advertisers, event sponsors, exhibitors and delegates for your continued support at this challenging time.