Guy Williams. The World of Model Railways (1970)

     Guy Williams. The World of Model Railways (1970) It’s difficult to decide what audience Williams had in mind for this book. He tries to include everything: a brief history of railways, the development of railway modelling as an adjunct to design, then the appearance of toy trains, and the slow but steady growth of true-to-scale modelling. His technical discussions vary from accurate to simplified and thereby misleading. Errors abound (many mere typos, the kind that galley proofing should have caught.) He devotes chapters to layouts, track, rolling stock, buildings, scenery, etc, but deals with none of them in a way that would help a beginner to design and build his own layout, nor how to select commercial offerings.
      The book also displays the weaknesses of Williams’ sources. He doesn’t have a wide enough knowledge of “the world of model railways” himself, so he relies on others to fill in the gaps. That’s done in a haphazard fashion, for example, New Zealand gets more ink that the USA, although well over half of all model railroaders in the world are located in North America. There is no way for the naive reader to judge the relative importance or accuracy of the information Williams provides, while the knowledgeable fan sees many distortions and misleading emphases. The black and white photos are poorly reproduced, but the colour plates are sharp and clear. Some captions refer to the “realistic” scenery, which is somewhat too kind a description. All in all, a hodgepodge which satisfies neither the beginner nor the seasoned modeller. (2007)