Hi, I recently bought a few Model Railroader books but there are some that I can’t find or are too expensive on amazon because they are out of order.
I’m searching for this book: Building City Scenery: For your Model Railroad
I live in Canada so if you know a place from where I could buy it, just let me know.
Thanks for your help!
I have to ask, is there any reason you want this particular - book Building City Scenery", which is by John Pryke?
I have it, and the author does use his 1950s-era Boston layout a lot to demostrate and showcase his various suggestions and recommendations (there are a few other layouts). It’s a decent book, perhaps a bit dated now. Looks like Amazon resellers are offering the book in the 20.00-30.00 USD range, which isn’t that outrageous, I guess.
Unfortunately you said the magic word “Canada”, which IME is kind of a pricy nightmare to ship things to for private sellers (I tried a few times with Canadian bidders on eBay back in the day), otherwise I’d offer to sell you my copy.
A good way to source out of print books is via:
Several copies there from Canadian sources, which should help.
It’s just that I wouls like to know how to model a realistic small city with the buildings, streets, figurines, vehicules …
Well, it’s not a bad book, it’s just a bit outdated. For example, he cements a human figure on a sidewalk using CA, where as nowadays it’s more likely to use tacky glue or something similar so that you can remove and reposition the figure without messing up the sidewalk or the figure.
Also, it definitely applies to modeling a 1950s sort of urban area (i.e. Boston, specifically the Union Freight RR), although he did do a nice job on painting his 1940s/50s era vehicles (most look to be Alloy Forms - was CMW around in 2000? - although some are solid castings with windows painted black - that really detracts). If you read MR or other mags, or hunt around on the web, you will encounter most of his tips reinterpreted over the years. I’m positive I’ve seen the how to model a street repair scene in various incarnations over the years.
One tip I do like (and forgot he mentioned when I “reinvented it” a few years back) when adding a open drain grate to a street, paint the area underneath flat black and glue the grate over that.
I wouldn’t call anything in it outdated. Just because its common for one person to do something one way doesn’t make the alternative outdated (for instance, I find the stack a mountain of foam up to be hilariously wasteful when cookie cutter could yield the same result for lower cost). I have a copy of it and I love it.
I also highly recommend it but be careful about pricing, some vendors charge a bucket full, way way over what it is worth, for me $40-$50 max but final price is up to you.
Thanks for your help. I saw on amazon that a few copies were very expensive. I found some acceptable but the company don’t deliver in Canada.
If somebody knows a place that sell this book at a reasonnable price and can send it to Canada, please tell me.
Nobody knows of a place where they can sell me this book at a raisonnable price and send it to Canada?
Google it, the price is set by the market, if $30.00 is too much for you to pay, you may need to look for another source of instruction.
I am searching but I have not find any place yet.
I’m pretty sure it was like $24 in the first place, when it was still in print.
Now that I got thinking about it, it probably would be easier and more cost effective to just track down the four MR issues that the layout comes from in the first place. Then find any random MR that deals with towns. There was a pretty decent one in the last year or so they explained how to guide the eye.
The OP’s problem is he lives in Canada. The price of book in Canada on Amazon.ca is $60 Canadian (approx $57 US) and up. Most of the sellers are in the US, although the price is the same range from UK and Canadian sellers. There are a few copies available in the US for less than $30 US (approx $28 Canadian) . However, Canadian regs result in excessive cost to ship there. In this case apparently about $30 Canadian . So whether he buys from the US or Canada, his cost is around $60 Canadian, possibly more.
DSchmitt is absolutely right. That’s why I find it difficult to find this book.