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Modelling Books Published |
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Modelling Books Published |
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| The 4mm Wagon Part Three | Wild Swan | |||
| Geoff Kent | £16.95 | 160 pages | Softback | 2004 |
| The third and final part of a trilogy covering conflats, containers, wagons for long loads and brake vans. Apart from featuring some key brake van designs in excellent detail, I think this is the best book of the three - and the first two were both very good. This final volume also sets out to cover various finishing touches and features numerous excellent photographs of details that whilst of great importance to the modeller are rarely seen. I predict that this will be one of Wild Swan's fastest selling books, highly recommended to 4mm modellers of nearly all persuasions. | ||||
| Carl Arendt's Small Layout Scrapbook | Carl Arendt | |||
| Carl Arendt | £12.95 | 64 pages | Softback | 2006 |
| A very welcome reprise to Carl's earlier books, both now out of print and unobtainable. The theme is minimum space railway modelling, with minimum space being loosely defined as smaller than 4 X 6 feet, although most models featured here are significantly smaller. Built upon the ever growing number of contributions to his very interesting website at www.carendt.us, this is a fantastically diverse collection of well modelled railways, each of which offers above average visual and even operating interest. The contributors come from around the globe, literally, and the number of models displayed here and on the website are testament to the great influence and inspiration that Carl has provided - no mean achievement! | ||||
| Layout Designs for Operation | Atlantic | |||
| Stephen Rabone and Trevor Ridley | £16.99 | 96 pages | Softback | 2006 |
| The first named author of this book has been responsible for two of the more interesting layouts to have appeared in the model press recently, in the form of "Hellifield" in 4mm scale and "Halifax Midland" ingeniously scratchbuilt in S scale. Both feature in this catholic collection of model railway ideas, half of which cover prototypes outside of the UK. Each idea is attractively presented with photographs and descriptions of the prototypeto be depicted and the layout sketches are particularly well done. Whilst the coverage of non UK prototypes may not be to everyone's taste, I thought that the choice of prototype was interesting and well done. In a final chapter Stephen describes his own layout building "history" from the point of view of the evolution and exploration of various themes and ideas. | ||||
| Model Railway Planning and Design Handbook | Santona | |||
| Steve Flint | £18.95 | 96 pages | Softback | 2004 |
| This is a highly original and very inspirational colour compendium of model railway thoughts, designs and models. It is ingeniously laid out as five themed chapters which each reflect the styles and thoughts of five different modellers; Steve Flint, Paul Lunn, Neil Ripley, Ken Gibbons and Jack Burnard. The uniformly excellent quality of the photography graphics and print reproduction together with the quality of thought and modelling of the contributors has created one of the most pleasing books on the subject ever produced - it is certainly the best colour book on model railways that I have yet seen. As the compiler Steve Flint observes we are living in a new age of model railways where the quality of British outline ready to run models far exceeds anything previously available. The book sets out to show schemes which are fundamentally "railwaylike" rather than "finescale", and in doing so provides a fascinating counterpoint to the superb but very different books and modelling approaches espoused by Wild Swan - every bit as intelligent but completely different. This book, I suspect, may be the harbinger of a quiet revolution in British railway modelling. | ||||
| Modelling Irish Railways | Midland Publishing | |||
| Stephen Johnson and Alan O'Rourke | £14.99 | 88 pages | Softback | 2004 |
| This is an exceptionally well illustrated book, consisting of excellent and mostly colour photographs of fine models in various scales, together with prototype photographs and information. Separate chapters cover prototype track layouts and signalling and operation together with numerous other aspects of the subject - looking at the coverage I do not think that all this information has ever before been assembled in one publication. Useful appendices give addresses of Irish model manufacturers, 4mm track standards and sources of further information. In summary I think the book succeeds in being an inspirational springboard towards modelling Irish railways | ||||
| Modelling Scotland's Railways | Santona | |||
| Ian Futers | £18.95 | 112 pages | Softback | 2006 |
| I first "met" Ian Futers during the infamous three day week when he introduced readers of the Railway Modeller to his clever circular "Glen Douglas" layout in the truncated March 1974 issue. The whole concept of simple track layout on a continuous curve coupled with characterful structure modelling was brilliant and was one of the very first of a whole series of atmospheric Scottish themed layouts that Ian has since built. Using both Ian's models and those of others, this densely packed book develops numerous authentic Scottish themes into attractive and practical model railway ideas. As with Steve Flint's earlier modelling books the use of colour and general layout and look of the book is extremely effective. The photographs are particularly well chosen and reproduced and cover a wide range of eras and subjects, including many atmospheric and informative colour photographs of structures and stations. All eras up until the present day are covered and I unreservedly recommend this excelllent book to anyone with an interest in its subjects. | ||||
| Railway Modelling the Realistic Way | Haynes Publishing | |||
| Iain Rice | £19.99 | 352 pages | Hardback | 2007 |
| Published at the end of 2007, this is a very worthy successor to Norman Simmons widely read and published "textbook" to small scale railway modelling. I very much like the Iain's writing style, notwithstanding a tad too many tads, and have thoroughly enjoyed reading through this book. A self confessed member of the finescale movement, I think Iain gives us a very cogent and intelligent analysis of where UK railway modelling is and how it got there together with a great deal of practical information and advice on how to do it. Other comments are that it inevitably majors on 4mm scale and tends to cover the historic/steam era railway, although definitely not to the exclusion of other areas. Overall this is a really good read and an interesting summary of UK railway modelling in the early 21st Century. | ||||