I have a ninth edition 'Baker' atlas that has accompanied me on many rail tours and self organised trips. On recent trips I've seen a couple of copies of this atlas as well as the better known Quail Track Plans. I'll offer some comments and comparisons that I hope may help prospective buyers ;
1. Out of date data - the modern railway is changing so quickly that any printed atlas is almost certain to be out of date by the time it comes back from the printers. Does the occasional signal box closure really affect your use of a rail atlas ? The majority of rail enthusiasts are likely to say 'no' but you may wish to bear this in mind if you really have to have current precise info.
2. I followed my route home from London tonight - a journey I've been taking for around 10 years, and spotted things I'd never noticed before thanks to the details in this book. You wouldn't get that from the 'Baker'.
3. I have compared one of my recent trips to East Anglia - the route I highlighted of the journey I took in the 'Baker' vs the same in 'Trackatlas'. Although the 'Baker' has things like industrial tracks and preserved lines marked, this atlas has far greater detail covering the different running lines, level crossings, signal boxes (open or closed) plus the recorded track distances (with an introductory piece on these for newcomers at the beginning).
4. I'm planning a trip to the southern 'Anglia Plus' rail rover zone and I think I'll take both books and use both books in my planning in conjunction with online timetables - the Baker to mark up my overall map of lines covered and the 'Trackatlas' to follow during the journey so I know what I'm passing more accurately.
5. The Quail Track Plans are probably more detailed but do not give the geographical context of the 'Trackatlas'. The latter is more important to me and it is a good meeting point between the 'Baker' geographical maps and the 'Quail' detailed plans in my opinion.
In terms of aging, the 2009 print I have has the Bathgate - Airdrie (which I have travelled on) and East London overground routes dotted in with basic station locations and names - there may be others but these were two that I'm familiar with so chose to check how they had been represented. You could ink them in if you wish as the geographical context is fair. But it's fair to say that the author did some reasonable 'future proofing' by dotting in expected line openings. The other thing this atlas gives is a clearer picture of junctions and where you need to be to get to where you want to go next as it isn't always clear where you need to change for some lines.
If I was going to renew just one of my rail atlases in five years, I would plump for this one.
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