Track Planning For Realistic Operation First Edition

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have a copy from my great grandfathers collection of track planning for realistic operation in the 1963 first edition there are no visible defects and a photo is shown below.

Also is a 6th edition how to wire your model railroad and a fourth edition 101 track plans. Does anyone know if these are worth anything?

2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIRST-EDITION-1963-RAILROAD-TRACK-PLANNING-OPERATION-BOOK-BY-JOHN-ARMSTRONG-/381618197284?hash=item58da379324

[:)]

3

Kalmbach printed lots of them. The real value will be the ideas you get from reading it. Very few of the used “how to” books are worth their initial price. You can see by the link Ja Bear provided, Track Planning wasn’t worth $19.00 to anybody. Checking the sold auctions, I see several 2nd editions selling for 8 to 9 bucks including shipping and quite a few closing without a bid. IIRC, I have several 1st and 2nd editions in boxes of books I accumulated when buying HO collections over the years.

4

I have the first and third edition. The 3rd includes additional material. The first includes several published track plans with modifications by Armstrong to be more operational plus more plans by Armstrong at the end. So both are good to have.

But there is no real collector or rare book value. A local used bookstore I frequent has these types of books from time to time for less than $10.

Enjoy them as momentos of your family history of model railroading.

Paul

5

In all truth on a good day maybe $3.00 on a regular day maybe dollar or two.

6

Like said above…Real valuable to the first timer or and entry modeler… :slight_smile: For people like me that dont get time to hang out and help out with others in the know there is so much that can be learned in a few flicks of those pages.

7

I have seen various editions of Track Planning for Realistic Operation for sale for just a few bucks at swap meets. That is how I got mine (the edition with the layout set up on the nose of a Conrail Geep). The only thing that would give an older edition much special value is if it was autographed by John Armstrong himself. But I have seen author-autographed rail books being sold cheaply at swap meets so even that does not appear to add much collector value.

Dave Nelson