Playing with trains: book recommendation

Ed Oates wrote: I've just finished reading a book about model trains: building them, finding inspiration, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it and you may too. "Playing with Trains: A Passion Beyond Scale" by Sam Posey. You can see reviews and some sample text on Amazon.com.

------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks, Ed. This is my kind of book. Here's a link to it:

Ed Oates wrote: I've just finished reading a book about model trains: building them, finding inspiration, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it and you may too. "Playing with Trains: A Passion Beyond Scale" by Sam Posey. You can see reviews and some sample text on Amazon.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a link that actually works:

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire

There was a review of this book in Model Railroader when the book was first published (I think it was along with an article about Sam Posey's layout).

I also had the pleasure of meeting Sam in-person couple of years back. He was a guest speaker at our annual Winterfest N-Trak show in Springfield, MA (USA).

I found his stories quite amusing. Nice guy!

Peteski

Here's my thoughts after reading the first half or so after receiving it as a Christmas gift in 2004. I DID enjoy the second half much more, btw.

"Paul - The CB&Q Guy" (Modeling 1960's In HO.)

........... I got his book for Christmas and read halfway through it last nite. I got this impression early on in the book to the point where I almost put it down in disappointment. He mentions reading stuff by Westcott, McClannahan, Selios, et al, and then decides it's too *hard*, or complicated, or whatever, and proceeds to re-invent the wheel, instead of standing on the shoulders of these giants and just learning how to do it himself. He then proceeds to hire a carpenter to build the layout, an electrician to wire it, and a guy from his LHS to do everything else on the layout *except* the scenery. Even with that he had his wife, who apparently is a "renaissance woman", with artist as a list of her accomplishments, advise him on scenery stuff, too. He also would take pics of the layout and then have them critiqued by a couple professional photographers...I'm surprise he just didn't hire them to take the photos, as well.

Oh well, I'll probably stick with the book to the end since I'm so far into it. Maybe it will get better.

I didn't say that he was an excellent all-around modeler. I just found him amusing. IIRC, his speech consisted mainly of excerpts of his book. But I do have to say that the guy has a good sense of humor. And his wife is an artist (I've met her too).

Hey, if you had some spare funds, wouldn't you hire people to take care of things you don't like to do on your layout? And then just do what you find is the most fun?

Peteski