Reviews
For 30 years, Kalmbach has published the magazine Great Model Railroads, featuring a wealth of model layout information (283 different model layouts), and this DVD-ROM archive from 1991-2020 captures all that material in one convenient package.
Within the pages of Great Model Railroads, some of the best authors in the model railroad field have contributed to these once-a-year issues including Jim Hediger, Allen McClelland, Bob Hayden, Andy Sperandeo, Tony Koester and Jim Kelly. “An excellent variety” of layouts in all scales is the goal of these special issues, including new product news and some additional modeling features, say the editors.
In the premier issue in 1991, seven layouts were featured, all in color, of HO, N and O gauge pikes. Some of the features through the later issues included an HO layout that typified the running of 16 various Santa Fe passenger trains from the 1950s-era, the HO scale Chesapeake & Ohio Allegheny Division modeled in a spare bedroom, a 4 x 8' N scale Pennsylvania RR layout, the 21 x 27-foot Coon Creek Lumber On3 layout modeling the Pacific Northwest during the 1920s, and the main line 25 x 41-ft HO layout of the Burlington Northern and Union Pacific railroads in Nebraska.
The 1998 issue of the magazine presented nine dream layouts in HO, N, O and S, including the superb 20 x 30-ft S scale layout of Roger Nulton who models the Monon Railroad in 1948. Another layout shown is the Union Pacific’s Wyoming Division in HO scale, featuring a large, captivating color photo of HO UP steam locomotives, UP turbines and diesels in a typical railroad yard setting. And a 2001 issue detailed the 12 x 20-ft HO scale Green Mountain Division of the Boston & Maine in 1958 where first generation diesels such as RS-1s and RS-3s prevailed, along with GP-9s.
In all there are numerous articles with many valuable hints and tips, layout track plans with dimensions, large, exciting color photos and worthwhile modeling ideas presented in these issues of the magazine. Modelers in all scales would benefit from having all this material on one handy DVD. Note that the DVD ROM disc provided will not play on a stand-alone DVD player and can only be used in a computer DVD drive.
—By Don Heimburger, Heimburger House Publishing Company