Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury. Bradbury writes about his experiences in the basement building his model railroad. Seems he is a really decent carpenter and makes bulletproof benchwork, handlays track, does outstanding job of wiiring layout, but mostly buys RTR equipment. Gets slammed by by self-proclaimed expert for not being a “real” modeler.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand. Rand is not pleased with her new Trainman RS-32 and writes a blistering letter to the company that made it. Gets no reply.
The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler. Butler is all thumbs and can’t figure out how to use X-Acto knives, gets numerous cuts requiring 75 stitches. Unfortunately has no health insurance.
Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. Conrad complains about his botched attempts at wiring his layout. Seems he blew every circuit in the house and within a two mile radius.
The Sound And The Fury - William Faulkner. Faulkner goes on a rant because he can’t figure out which CV to set to lower the speaker volume on his new BLI GS-4.
Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham somehow manages to get superglue all over himself. Requires surgery to get unstuck.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley. Huxley writes lugubrious tome lamenting the demise of Athearn Blue Box kits.
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser writes the definitive study of why there have been so many Big Boys available from so many manufacturers but there are so few smaller locomotives available.
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson. Anderson writes how-to book for Kalmbach outlining how he built a switching layout using Winesburg, Ohio as a layout design element. Foreward by Tony Koester.
Hmmmmmmm…model railroaders are a “novel” bunch for certain but I don’t think I’d ever confuse them with “novelists”. But I can think of a couple of other terms though…;-]
Hey, Mark - today I wrote 10 pages of my novel and started working on the Walthers River City Textiles building. Sometimes we do go together…
Sawyer, Fitzgerald might have written “This Side of Paradise” - A modeler’s wife is claustrophobic, and hates basements, so he gets the entire room for his trains.
I think this is really UNFAIR to our wonderful cousins across the ocean in England there. Some obvious prejudice going on here!!! (I’m Italian so I don’t know how much I should really care about the English, although the Italian Machiavelli MUST be mentioned when it comes to model railroads I think.)
So…back to England…What about Charles Dickens? Now, you have:
Tale of Two Cities (Franklin and South Manchester??)
Hard Times … oh yeah!
not to mention Great Expectations and The Curiosity Shop.
I think this is really UNFAIR to our wonderful cousins across the ocean in England there. Some obvious prejudice going on here!!! (I’m Italian so I don’t know how much I should really care about the English, although the Italian Machiavelli MUST be mentioned when it comes to model railroads I think.)
Huh? Huxley, Waugh, Maugham, Orwell, Conrad, and Butler were all Brits. Of the 11 examples, 5 were British authors.
How’s about:
“Far From The Madding Crowd” - Thomas Hardy. Hardy writes of his experience as a lone wolf modeler modeling South African Railways while living in Nome, Alaska in the 50’s.
Machiavelli wasn’t a novelist, but if you insist:
“The Prince” - Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli, a self-proclaimed expert on everything model railroad dispenses unsought after advice to the public in general and the Medici family in particular on the right way to do the hobby. (note: Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” has long been considered the classic retort to “The Prince”).
Then there’s
“Les Miserables” - Victor Hugo. Hugo gets pounced upon by a renegade bunch of rivet counters led by the notorious know-it-all Javert.
The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne. Mr. Verne discovers that trains entering a peninsula on his layout strangely disappear.
At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft. The horror master becomes obsessed with the work of John Allen, and extends his layout’s mountains up through the basement ceiling and fills his house with them.
A Descent into the Maelstrom - Edgar Allan Poe. Poe can’t figure out why half of his trains don’t come out the bottom of his helix.
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens waits anxiously for each new HO locomotive release, only to encounter more and more production delays.
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell. Margaret’s layout is destroyed without a trace when she leaves the attic window open during a hurricane. She wanted to convert to N scale anyway.
The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne. Mr. Verne discovers that trains entering a peninsula on his layout strangely disappear.
Oh, you want to play that game?
Stranger In A Strange Land - Robert Heinlein. Heinlein, a “fundamentalist” when it comes to scale model railroading, suddenly finds himself strangely attracted to 3 rail O gauge.
The Midas Plague - Frederik Pohl. Pohl goes completely insane and writes a long, rambling article about manufacturers who are making too many models in such rapid succession that nobody has any time to save up for any of them.
Misery - Stephen King. King discovers his brand new Big Boy won’t go around 18" radius curves.
Nightfall - Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. Southern Pacific modelers face mass panic when Daylight rolling stock is unavailable for the first time in anyone’s memory.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke. With the Y2K panic safely behind them, a father and son face the daunting task of removing all the stockpiled food and supplies in their basement, in order to finally build that layout they’ve always wanted. Will they be able to clear enough room to begin construction?
Dune - Frank Herbert. Building the line through the shifting sands west of Yuma was a daunting task for the railroad men of old. Modeling it is turning into an equally daunting task for young Paul Atreides. With hobby supplies only available from local Robber Baron Harkonnen, his Freeman budget only goes so far, and everytime he turns around, worms are boring through his benchwork. Will he ever get a train running on his layout, or will he listen to his know-it-all baby sister and give up modeling to become a cult leader instead? If he does, will there be any spice in his life without a hobby to take his mind off all the responsibilities?
She- H Rider Haggard. An intrepid modeler comes to the realization that his dreams of a basement railroad empire must first meet the approval of She Who Must Be Obeyed!
haha, great post! I’m in American Literature this year (English 3). Wonder what F. Scott Fitzgerald would have written?