I got some gift certificates to Amazon.com for Christmas and decided to buy a couple of books that sounded good in the MR ads over the last few months. They are Basic Structure Modeling and Model Railroader’s Guide to Freight Cars. Both books are written by Jeff Wilson. I have bought model railroading books before and most of the time I have usually been disappointed. Not this time. Both these books are filled with good information and great pictures. The best part is that they are priced at not much more than a couple of issues of the magazine! I think I bought them for around $12 each with free shipping.
I’ve been disappointed with almost all the ones I’ve bought as well. They seemed like a good idea at the time but I was wrong. I did find “The New Scenery Tips and Techniques” and the “Building City Scenery” books useful.
I’ve bought pretty much the entire Kalmbach library of paperback how-to books (I was living in a hotel for four months while moving and could only read about model railroading). They are a mixed bag. Generally speaking, I would recommend the ones that have a single author over the ones that are compilations of past MRR articles. The former tend to be more coherent and easier to read since the single author imposes some structure to the book. The ones I would recommend are:
Locomotive Servicing Terminals
Freight Yards
Industries Along the Tracks
Building City Scenery
How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery
Realistic Model Railroad Operation
Trackplanning for Realistic Operation
Basic Model Railroad Benchwork