Mid-Sized & Manageable Track Plans (Model Railroader Books)

My greater gripe with the book is that it looks to me as though Mr. Rice, after his amazing and thought-provoking first Kalmbach effort "Small, Smart, & Practical", was asked to write a book that uses "American-style" layout design. (An impression that was backed up by the non-sequitur inclusion of vaguely related photos from old Model Railroader magazine articles.) As such, it is missing the space-saving and life-simplifying devices such as "cassettes", sector plates, modular design, etc. There's very little here that has not already been done by John Armstrong.

In short, it's a really nice book and I don't mean to be too harsh--I expect I'll refer to it every now and then as I plan my new layout. Very entertaining writing, good prototype (and not-so-prototype) inspirations, and I always look forward to the illustrations. If you are looking for a standard Kalmbach-style book chock-full-o' layout plans, it's a good one. However, I hope to see another book on the topic whenever Mr. Rice can get back to it, one that provides a more convincing answer to the question I had in my mind as I paid for this book--"What would Iain Rice do if he had an entire 20ft. by 20 ft. basement at his disposal for his model trains?"


Full color photographs & extensively detailed instructions   August 10, 2003
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful

Written by Iain Rice (a model railroad enthusiast and author of 11 modeling handbooks), Mid-Sized & Manageable Track Plans is a straightforward guide to creating track plans and track backgrounds to appropriate N & HO scales. Full color photographs, extensively detailed instructions, and no-nonsense advice combine to make Mid-Sized & Manageable Track Plans a first-rate addition to any dedicated model railroad hobbyist's personal reference collection.