My experience with freight yards is that you fit in everything you can, then wish you had more room because everything you wanted did not fit.
I could study a book on planning freight yards for days, and that still will not change the physical reality that I do not have room for diesel service track, caboose track, or more than four yard tracks.
I don’t know anyone that would have benefitted from a lot of information of yard design. Maybe you guys in N scale with huge basements. No one here has basements.
Anyway, I can see a book on yard design having limited appeal. That is all I was trying to say.
Hi Dave, Thanks for the MRR Digi-Archive Info’. I’ve got your post pasted into a Word doc and have just been looking thru the articles quoted. I’ll save them for the weekend. Paul
Steven, I’ll accept your word as gospel truth, but it still surprises me to read it. I agree with the OP that it seems like that book would always be in demand for newer modelers who are trying to figure out how and where to place a yard in their layout.
Some modelers might prefer to spend their limited hobby-book budget on a book of more general appeal, like Armstrong’s track planning book. Others might be modeling a specific prototype and feel they don’t need a book since they’re following actual track arrangements. Yet others might not feel they have enough room for a big enough yard to justify buying a whole book on the topic. Yet others would rather model passenger traffic or a bridge line that goes to and from staging. And so on and so on. Generally, the more specialized a book topic is, the more fervently some people want it, but the fewer people want it overall.
There is a book, published by Kalmbach, that is long out of print but desired by folks interested in seeing if it contains relevant solutions;
Their access to this book is solely in the hands either of luck, or paying an extortionate price to ‘classic book sellers’ – profit from which Kalmbach derives not a cent of revenue;
Kalmbach has no plans to reprint the thing, and arguably never will get enough demand in one place unless the book is extensively revised and expanded, which we can take as highly unlikely in today’s circumstances;
Kalmbach could easily provide a scan of this book as part of its for-pay Digital Archive, and thereby solve the would-be readers’ problems without the need for pious-sounding publication-cost excuses. Or supply it as an e-book themselves, and be a resource instead of dog in the manger about the copyrighted content.
Yes, Andy was very devoted to studying the prototype and following their practice as much as possible.
With the exception of ny N Scale “Dream House” layout of the early 1990s, I have never had the luxury of space, so I need to choose what is important to me.
Must have: 18 stall roundhouse for my brass steamers.
Can do without: Diesel locomotive refueling/service tracks.
The prototype could never make these decisions in 1954.
It’s not as easy converting an old print edition to an electronic version as it seems. If it was straight print copy, maybe. If it contains lots of photos, print, and charts, the cost is high.
If you are talking about a simple page-by-page scan to be made into a PDF or similar form, maybe it’s worth it, maybe not. I guess legally you’d make sure author royalties and other issues are settled.
Again, what Steve Otte said applies. If a company is going to go to the work and expense, they want to make a profit. Even converting a book of this type to electronic form for limited sales is not something they would want to do without a pretty sure idea they will sell more than 50 or 60 copies.
I think that may not be the case for the Sperandeo book as the reference he needs. All that really needs is a typical book scan, not a full proof archive copy - and while you might need to take multiple images with the book scanner to get the ‘best’ resolution, that can be done by rote if not interactively and even if none turn out to be satisfactory you can go back and high-resolution flat scan anything needing more attention in a couple of minutes each. Ditto any foldouts, insertions, plates or other material not particularly likely to comprise much of a Kalmbach mass paperback.
Certainly plenty more difficult books were efficiently scanned for the T1Trust repository, so I can say for a fact it is ‘doable’ on relatively small budget.
One thing I must say for Kalmbach Media is that they do not seem to do anything on the cheap. They produce quality products with a quality feel to them.
The magazine archive is a great resource, but it is one thing I do not subscribe to. I have too many back-issues laying around.
I do not think scanning the books would be a worthwhile addition and not worth the effort, and I hope they wouldn’t do it if they were not going to do it right.
How many books would even be interesting that are out of print.
Andy’s Yard Design Book.
Armstrong’s Creative Layout Design.
I don’t think there are enough “holes” to worry about.
I don’t read all the track planning books, because I hate track planning.
However, I would bet that within all the layout design books in print right now, MRP annuals, and the Engine Terminals book, all the information anyone needs is out there.
Silly? I don’t think it is. You do. That settles that. Do you realize when you post something like, “That’s just silly”, it’s insulting to the person who wrote the post?
Now, I’m going to be a fortune teller. I’ll predict that your answer to me will be that if I post something silly, then your comment is not an insult.
Of course, I don’t think anything you’ve ever posted is silly.
Then maybe you could convince the T1Trust repository to make this ‘doable’ project available. After all, they get donations to do their work, and their intent is preservation, not making a profit, unlike Kalmbach.
Since Kalmbach has made a business decision not to reprint this book, so be it. But let me applaud Kalmbach for publishing the book in the first place. I consider this book as one of the very best model railroading books ever published by Kalmbach.
