Inspiration for Model Railroaders

    Mike Shafer, ed.  Railroads You Can Model (1976) and More Railroads You Can Model (1978) Out of print. Just what the titles say: Overviews of several railroads with suggested trackplans. These books are part of Model Railroader’s successful attempts to shift the hobby towards modelling prototypes, not only in appearance but also in operation. Each article describes the line, summarises the operations, and illustrates settings, rolling stock, and locomotives.
    As history of the lines covered, well above average. Anyone who wants to base his layout on, say, The Ontario and Western or a branch of the GM&O, would find the articles very useful. The modelling suggestions are track plans, most of them redolent of the spaghetti-bowl school: get as much track as possible into the (always insufficient) available space. But there are also signs of the coming revolution: “holding tracks”, now known as “staging”, figure in most of them, and track arrangements emulate the prototype. Several of the plans assume a garage-sized space, so that the track to scenery ratio is relatively low. Photos of structures and industries prompt the modeller to create prototype scenes.
     A nostalgia trip for the older modeller, a good source of information for the neophyte or railroad fan, and inspiration for anybody in the hobby. Worth looking for, I think. **½