Hello everyone,Buying from Amazon for a early Christmas present to myself, I bought my first kalmback Publishing Model Railroader "How to," books. My first I bought last year was Detailing & Upgrading Steam Locomotives, and after the post I made in regards to John Armstrong got locked, I decided I owed it to myself to buy the third edition of his guide to track planning and realistic operation.Along with that I bought three more, being Basic DCC wiring for your model railroad, Designing & Building Multi-Deck model railroads by Tony Koester and guide to narrow gauge railways.I am looking forward to reading these and other in future.Having books and online internet help is a very good combination.
There is nothing wrong with books. In the 80's when I built my first real layout, the Internet was still an Al Gore dream. Kalmbach books was all I had, and it worked out pretty well.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I would strongly suggest you try to add "Model Railroading With John Allen" to your library.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I found the MR special issue "How to Build Realistic Reliable Track" to be very informative. Out of print but occasionally available.
How to Build Realistic Reliable Track #6 Model Railroader Special Issue | eBay
If tackling DCC first time, I started with Kalmbach's "DCC Guide" (mine was Ed. 1) and found it helpful as a good introduction.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
peahrensI found the MR special issue "How to Build Realistic Reliable Track" to be very informative.
I think Jason used most of the "Bendy Track" to build his own layout.
He's not afraid to try something when he thinks there's a market for it, and at the time Atlas, the 100 pound gorilla in the market when it comes to track, was having serious problems sourcing their product. By the time Bendy Track was ready, Atlas fixed most of their supply chain problems, plus I think in general modelrs were not very willing to try something different - also it was JUST flex track, none of the rest of the ecosystem like turnouts. And all those that don't use Atlas or hand lay, they've been using Peco. No matter how good Bendy Track might be, it was more or less doomed, unless Atlas would have been unable to get their supply line up and running.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
All good points, Randy. Is Bendy Track now off the market?
Rich
Alton Junction
richhotrainAll good points, Randy. Is Bendy Track now off the market?
The Jeff Wilson books on industry, all of them -- both those that focus on a specific industry and the older "industries beside the tracks" series that had multiple different industries in each book, can all be highly recommended
Ditto his (Jeff Wilson's) freight car and structure books. There are multiple versions of each since it seemed Kalmbach preferred to have a new book rather than a second or revised edition.
It is an out of print classic but I still like re reading Art Curren's kitbashing book. Tony Koester's kitbashing book which is intended to replace Curren's, is good too but an entirely different way of approaching the issue. David Frary's book on Realistic Model Railroad Scenery has gone through several editions and any of them you can find will be good to have.
Another out of print Kalmbach book that I cannot recommend highly enough is Andy Sperandeo on freight yards.
And going way way back, there are two and maybe more "railroads you can model" books from Kalmbach, which reproduce old articles from Model Trains magazine of the 1950s and some Model Railroader articles from the 1950s and 60s. These books are chock full of ideas for a layout.
All my Kalmbach books are well-thumbed and, where appropriate, well marked up and annotated by me with ideas and references to other books or related articles in MR and elsewhere.
Some of them by the way are aimed more at Trains readers than MR readers and I'd mention the George Drury books - the Guide and the Historical Guide to North American railroads. The old Diesel Spotter's Guides also contain info and photos useful to modelers, now that most of the locomotives in the Guides are in museums or scrapped!
Dave Nelson
dknelsonIt is an out of print classic but I still like re reading Art Curren's kitbashing book. Tony Koester's kitbashing book which is intended to replace Curren's, is good too but an entirely different way of approaching the issue.
Art Curren's book is just a lot more fun. Tony's is way too serious.
dknelsonThe old Diesel Spotter's Guides also contain info and photos useful to modelers, now that most of the locomotives in the Guides are in museums or scrapped!
What about that Contemporary Diesel Spotter's guide you ask, why not leaf thur that - after all it's kind of historic data now as well. Glad you asked - those volumes (I have others as well, like the historical Guide to North American railroads and the historical Guide to N.A. Steam Locomotives) were "Perfect Bound", which turns out not to be perfect for the owner - if you crack or tear the spine in any, even minor way, the pages will start to become unstuck and drop out of the book. This seems to be a cascading effect, such that my contemporary spotter's guide became a mess of loose papers I ended up having to toss.I have looked around the web if there's anyway to reglue the pages back in (the steam locomotive guide has loose pages), nothing good seems to turn up though.
A lot of good books have been mentioned by others here. Since I was getting back into the hobby last year after many years being out, I found Tony's book Time Saving Techniques for Building Model Railroads to be very helpful: there is a lot of information to sort thru and organize in this hobby and its easy to get bogged down with "analysis paralysis."
Besides that book, the others I've referred to the most have been Armstrong's, Andy's Freight Yards, Steam & Diesel Servicing Terminals, and Painting Backdrops.
Where I need to supplement is in the DCC wiring/electronics area. I have Don Fiehmann's The DCC Guide 2nd Edition, but it really gets into the weeds on things and I need to start with a simpler wiring resource first.
Andy
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Milwaukee native modeling the Milwaukee Road in 1950's Milwaukee.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196857529@N03/
Perhaps in the minority here but I use the books as reference after reading them once. I often underline or similar for useful areas.
Any books you get by Jeff Wilson is an invaluable investment.
chutton01Those volumes were "Perfect Bound", if you crack or tear the spine in any, even minor way, the pages will start to become unstuck and drop out of the book.
Wargames rulebooks published 10-20 years ago had the identical problem.
We found out we could take them to a print shop, and they could cut the spine off the book and install a plastic binding that was much better. It was only about $3.00 per book.
Then you can leaf through it again.
I'll add my voice to the chorus singing the praises of Jeff Wilson's books. They are well written, informative, and well-researched. I haven't followed up on all of his recommendations for additional information, but the ones I have looked into were all good.
-Eric