Modeling the '50s: The Glory Years of Rail (Model Railroader) Paperback – 1 Jan. 2008

Helpful and instructive volume on how to model a revolutionary period of change on American rails.Excellent.

Good book but pricy

Excellent price and fast service - brilliant!

Wonderfull

Good background info for someone wanting to model the 1950's. A little too much info on the authors modelling that is probably not relevant to the majority.

Wer kennt das nicht, man plant ein US amerikanisches Layout aus einer bestimmten Zeit mit einer bestimmten RR Company in einer bestimmten Gegend, und weiss nicht, was kann da jetzt mit hinein und was darf nicht. Immerhin geben die USA viel Freiheiten, was Anlagenbau betrifft. Da dürfen schon einmal Boxes der ATSF bei der Burlington mit fahren oder Gebäude, die nur im Süden der Staaten zu finden sind, im Norden auftauchen, was in Deutschland sicher ein nogo ist. Doch neben einer guten Einordnungshilfe in die Zeit der Fünfziger, gibt dieses Heft (only in english language, sorry) einige guten Einblicke in das wie-gestalte-ich ein passendes Layout, welche Fahrzeuge bewegten sich auf den Straßen, das Weathern von Loks, stellt den El Capitan vor mit möglichen Umbau bzw. Erweiterungsmöglichkeiten, zeigt, wie man auch größere Bahnhofsanlagen baut, bietet mehrere Artikel zum Gütertransport und, was vielleicht nicht unbedingt so von Interesse ist, von Landschaftsgestaltung. Kurz und gut, die über 80 Seiten des Heftes sind eine wertvolle Hilfe zur Orientierung über die 50er Jahre in den USA und wie und was man am besten in Szene setzen kann. Natürlich sind sie nur ein kleiner Teil einer Recherche, aber ein bedeutender. Das Heft ist reichhaltig mit sehr guten Fotos und guten erklärenden Grafiken ausgestattet.

I recently purchased a copy of this book to learn more about the railroading industry in the 50s. The book provides a good overview of what railroading in 50s looked like in the US, and provides good tips and how-to's on how to make the model railroad look the right way. For example, the book includes information on how steam locomotives were weathered at that time due to lack of maintenance, how diesels weathered, right of way trackside structures still present in the 50s, or details such as the fact that stop signs were yellow instead of red. The narration of the book is centered around several model railroads which are used as examples. Overall I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in modeling the 50s, the transition era, and has not lived during that time :-)

This book is filled with great information for the modelers interested in the late steam to early diesel during the transition eras of the 1940's into the late 1950's. The only draw back I have with the book, is that the Model Railroader staff seems to believe that the general Railroad Modeling public can only digest 87 pages worth of information at one time! If you're a Southern Pacific fan this is a nice read...I just wish it would have been twice as many pages, and covered more roads...especially the Northern tier Roads like the NP, GN, CB&Q ,CNW, Milwaukee Road, Pennsylvania, NYC to Maine Central, to name just a few. Overall, its a nice read and I would recommend it as an addition to your library.

This book gives the reader/modeler lots of pictures of real trains, both steam and diesel, that ran doing this time period. The weathering and locomotive detailing instructions are well written, as well as the passenger car information that can be applied to other road named railroads. The section on vintage trucks was excellent, with all the colored pictures to show all the details and variety of trucks used in the 50's. Pictures of the buildings and signage of this period are shown through out the book, and give the modeler a view of large city buildings to small town structures and even gas stations. There is great material in this book for all levels of modelers who are interested in seeing railroading during its glory years. I consider myself to be an advanced modeler and feel this book gives me new information and photos that will help me during construction of my next HO layout; it will be a reference source in my train library.