D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition)

     D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition) Boreham has a sly sense of humour, and a nice comfortable direct style of writing. He addresses himself to people who are ingenious and skilled enough to be able to use both scrounged and professional materials and tools to make their models. He does say that there’s no point in making stuff, especially small parts, that are commercially available, but even 1978 narrow gauge modelling still required a lot of scratchbuilding. Boreham describes a number of tricks that are worth considering, such as how to make a doubly curved roof over a wooden form using tissue paper and glue. A charming book, which I’ve read before. I enjoyed rereading it. **1/2 (2006)

A. C. Kalmbach. Model Railroad Track and Layout (1952, 5th edition)

     A. C. Kalmbach. Model Railroad Track and Layout (1952, 5th edition). Apart from the dated technology, which reminds us of how much easier it is to build a layout these days, Kalmbach’s unarticulated assumptions about a layout are the most interesting. He recommends studying the prototype for examples of good track planning; and discusses several examples of “good” layouts in terms of their operation. But it was Frank Ellison that drew the what to us now seem the obvious conclusions: that a layout should be designed as whole, as a stage for the trains, whose operation should simulate that of the prototype as closely as possible. It was, I think, no accident, that Ellison’s articles were published Kalmbach's Model Railroader, since Ellison articulated what was in Kalmbach’s mind, and which his text in fact foreshadows and implies.
     The technical details of track building, layout construction, and electrical work have mostly historical interest. These matters have been refined and simplified so that most people nowadays will have little difficulty building a layout that works. *** (2006)

Kathryn Ivany. The C&E Railway Station Museum (2003)

C&E Station 1891

    Kathryn Ivany. The C&E Railway Station Museum (2003) Ivany tells a mix of social, economic, and railway history in this well done short book. A few plans would have been nice, but she wasn’t thinking of the needs of modellers. What’s most interesting is the rivalry between Strathcona (So. Edmonton) and Edmonton, a rivalry that wasn’t settled until the CPR built the High Level Bridge. Actually, the rivalry hasn’t quite died down: the revival of Whyte Avenue around 109th St was in part a (successful) attempt to move Edmonton’s cultural life to the South Side.
     The building that now stands about 3 blocks away from the original station’s site is a replica in outward appearance only. The original building's internal arrangements were altered several times to suit its owners, who used it as a residence. When it was to be moved, it fell apart, probably because too many odd cuts had been made in its bearing walls and beams to accommodate these changes. A new structure was built. Since the original plans have not been found, the present layout presents an educated guess about its appearance.
     Photos and other illustrations are as well reproduced as can be expected. A few too many typos mar the text, and occasionally Ivany’s grammar is confusing, but overall, the book rates **½. (2006)

C&E Railway Station Museum

Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944)

     Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944) Published by The Model Craftsman, one of several predecessors of Railroad Model Craftsman, this book reprints plans and articles from that magazine, along with what are (somewhat ambitiously) called instructions for building the locomotives depicted. I suspect Bill Schopp as the author of most of the articles, which display his characteristic vagueness and assumption of high skill levels in his readers, as well as his colloquial style.
      The plans are a mix of general arrangement drawings “simplified for the modeller”, shop cards with limited information, and elaborate drawings reproduced from the Locomotive Cyclopedia (Simmons Boardman.) Thus, they mostly provide too little information, and sometimes too much. The instructions are laughably incomplete, even I think for the kind of craftsman for which they were intended. Eg, “The drivers may be made up on the lathe, but some fellows may wish to buy castings”. The castings would have to be trued up on the lathe, too. The suggested materials range from wood to tinplate cut from cans, which reflects the dearth of modelling supplies during wartime. It’s left up to the modeller to glean what he can from the drawings and develop patterns for cutting parts. There is a brief description of how to make a pattern for casting drivers from Linotype metal, and how to progressively modify it for larger counterweights.
     Reproduction of the halftones is abysmal, even for the times. Model Craftsman used photo offset to copy the original pages. The line drawings also suffer from this process, with small details sometimes blurring together into almost indecipherable blobs of ink. The scale is usually 1/8" to the foot, which is too small to resolve smaller parts precisely enough for accurate modelling. The reader is often referred to photographs that weren’t reproduced, since they would not have fit into the layout of the book.
     The book does have historical interest, as an example of how awful the so-called good old days really were. Building models was not for the fainthearted. Modellers of all kinds had to contend with a lack of parts and materials that we just don’t tolerate anymore. Kits were few and far between, and consisted mostly of rough castings and chunks of unfinished materials. Modellers had to have a skill set that for the most part could only be acquired in an apprenticeship for tool and die maker or machinist. It’s amazing what these craftsmen accomplished. I have a series on building a “kitchen table locomotive,” which gives the kind of detailed help that the average person with average skills needs, but this series of articles wasn’t published until the mid-60s, by which time decent quality kits were available.
     The time it took to build the models almost completely from scratch of course reduced or eliminated the time available for building a layout. This suggests the main reasons for founding the clubs: pooling what little time they had enabled te modellers to build a layout they could share, as well as providing larger pikes than they could hope to build in their small and cramped homes. * (2006)

G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969)

     G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969) The title is an optimistic misnomer. Deason clearly has lots of experience building models in card and paper (with metal and wood bits added as needed), and his notion of what’s simple is not  what a beginner might think. He describes the construction of rather large traction engines and boats, as well as motor cars and trains. Simple these models are not: they are all motorised, working machines. Deason uses shellac and glue, as well as layering, to produce what are in effect high strength composite materials. Like Taylor (see How to Build 20 Railroad Models), he assumes rather more craft skills than most people possess, but I suppose that most buyers of his book would already have tried one of the “easy to build” cut-and-assemble card kits.
     In any case, the book shows what can be done when one is obsessed with building models on the cheap, and counts the cost of time as zero or even positive: after all, model building is a pleasant way to while away the hours between work and necessary business. Like Taylor, Deason writes in a plain, colloquial style. He  should explain his technical terms more than he does. This book, too, has merely adequate half tones, and pretty good drawings. From a few throw- away comments, it appears that Deason was one of the people behind the Micro-Models line of kits printed on post-card sized cards. I have one of those, and the smaller bits would take a magnifying glass to see clearly enough to make accurate cuts. **½ (2006)

Frank Taylor. How to Build 20 Railroad Models (1941/53)

     Frank Taylor. How to Build 20 Railroad Models (1941/53) Ah yes, the Good Old Days of building models, the ones that recent whinges about the dumbing down of Model Railroader refer to.
     Frank Taylor describes the making of everything from boxcars to cranes. He prefers brass and tin sheet (ie, tinned iron). He uses nails as well as glue to hold the parts of the models together. Most of his work is done in O scale, which at the time of writing was still number 1, and OO (1:76 in 19mm gauge) was still a contender. He doesn’t have modern glues or plastics available. Detail parts are few, and scale lumber is not even a distant dream, except for O scale, for which a “fellow with a circular saw” can cut exact scale sizes. He wrote at a time when the “local lumber yard” would cut wood to small sizes for you, when 1/16" 3-ply wood was widely available because of the strength of the model plane hobby, when “cut and shape the two pieces of the coupler pocket” was deemed sufficient help. Taylor does promote the building of culverts and other merely scenic items, which don’t after all contribute to the running of the trains. Around the same time as he wrote his construction articles, Frank Ellison was beginning his series on model railroads. His ideas and his Delta Lines changed the hobby forever.
     Taylor writes in a nice, clear, colloquial style, with occasional asides into the philosophy of building models based on the prototype, and with frequent mention of alternative materials and methods. The book is a pleasure to read, and many of Taylor’s tricks and techniques are still worth knowing. The plans and drawings are good, the photos merely adequate; the book was printed in 1953, when halftones tended to muddiness unless the original was brightly lit and contrasty. Despite the dated technology and assumption of rather more craft skills than most people posess, Taylor’s book is still worth reading, and it’s certainly inspiring. It's out of print, but if you find a copy, buy it. ***

Richard Tames. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (2004)

     Richard Tames. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (2004) Brunel is one of my heroes: an engineer of vision, daring, imagination, skill, and leadership. Relative to what had been done and what was deemed possible in his day, his projects were on a scale that have been equalled but not surpassed. He showed what engineers could do, and he did it mostly with the help of raw human and animal power. He led his workers by example, risking his own life along with theirs, suffering injury and barely escaping with his life when workings collapsed or were flooded.
    Brunel failed as often as he succeeded, but by showing how to plan and organise the construction of very large structures, he led the way to the kind of mega-projects that we take for granted these days. Administrative and financial difficulties played as large a role in success and failure then as now.  So did ego, and Brunel’s ego was huge. He was driven as much by a desire for worldly success and acclamation as by artistic ambition. His life was one of overwork in all ways; we know little of his family life, but indirect evidence suggests that he was at best a competent father and husband. His children did as well as children of the gentry would. His friends were few, drawn primarily from his family and from professional rivals. Brunel died of nephritis, not a pleasant way to go, leaving several projects to be completed by others. The civil engineering works designed for the Great Western Railway are his most enduring monuments.
     Tames has written short but well written sketch of Brunel’s life. He has the knack for the telling detail, such as Brunel’s comment on how well he got on with Robert Stephenson despite their intense rivalry as engineers. *** (2006)