MODEL RAILWAYS EXPLAINED
(BEYOND THE BEGINNING)
THE ONWARD DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEWCOMERS GUIDE TO MODEL RAILWAYS
The author's first published book, The Newcomer’s Guide to Model Railways has proved to be very popular and has given many readers a great helping hand in their hobby. So, it has been deemed necessary that there should be a second book, which would enhance the first without covering the same ground too much.
"Born in Faversham, Kent, the author was raised in a two-up, two-down end of terrace house with no bathroom or hot running water and an outside loo, where you didn't hang around longer than need be in the depths of winter!
The author's model railway interests started really way back in the late 1950s, when he was given a Tri-ang 00/H0 Princess Elizabeth train set for Christmas. This progressed from its simple oval of track laid out on the living room floor (yes, fluff and all in the loco’s gears and motor!) to being able to have a train set layout permanently set up in a bedroom. Later, in his early teens, he was able to build a medium-sized layout in a then-unused box room and this lasted for a number of years. Finally, the call of youthful adulthood together with its many attractions beckoned and was taking more and more of my free time. So, the layout was taken apart and most sold off to a neighbour. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that railway modelling once again took hold and eventually a new layout was born.
Having, since those teenage years, moved home several times and had a couple of model railway false starts, it was decided it was time to knuckle down and seriously start to build a decent model, so a layout called ‘Ridgley Vale’ was drawn up and became a first attempt at a portable and exhibition quality layout. Later, having tried building another portable exhibition layout, which for whatever reason never really got beyond the track laying stage! A further house moves then saw the author ‘inherit’ half of an internal double garage, thus allowing a brand-new fixed layout to be born in the garage – ‘Elmswood & Elmswood Central’. Only this time it was a layout destined never to leave home. Later on, the author on to build a portable OO layout called ‘West Haven’. In early 2019/late 2018 work on Elmswood ended and the layout is now being slowly dismantled with the aim to build another portable layout that can be left erected in the garage for ‘play’ use and taken to exhibitions as invited.
Having been involved in local model railway clubs as both a member and as two club's chairmen. The author also having built exhibition layouts and helped run them is in a great position to offer guidance and advice to those who perhaps would benefit from such experiences and skills.
With this second book to help the modeller with the many challenges they can face. this work is aimed at those who have already taken the plunge and begun construction and it will offer further guidance to the modeller.
ISBN: 9781857945454