Reviews
If you’re into picking up new ideas to improve your HO, HOn3, N or O 3-rail layout, this 92-page booklet can help, and you’ll be thoroughly entertained along the way as well.
The publication features nine beautifully detailed layouts, accompanied by a good amount of crisp color photos, and very detailed, helpful layout diagrams. Well-known modeler Tony Koester leads off with an update on his spacious, 500-foot mainline Nickel Plate Road, St. Louis Division HO pike. He reveals how his 24 x 60-foot sceniced layout has progressed over the years and the constant changes he’s made.
Per Laursen then discusses his 32 x 45 foot UP and BNSF pike and Joe Watts details the multi-decked Blissfield Model Railroad Club layout, both very detailed, realistic models. The 8 x 25-foot HOn3 White Pass & Yukon pike by Mike May centers on his layout modeled in 1983 so he could deviate from the prototype’s history a bit. If you like big steam power, you’ll find that on Ted Pamperin’s 1943-era Chesapeake & Ohio New River Division which depicts the Appalachia region in 1943. Included are tips on making urethane rock castings, and installing numerous trees on a layout.
Finally, detailed feature articles are presented on an HO San Francisco trolley line, an N scale 15 x 24-foot (and two staging yards) Pacific Northwest pike, creating the unique geography of Pennsylvania RRs Middle Division in O scale, and Hilton Glavish’s 33 x 44-foot HO 1950s-era Union Pacific layout as modeled on the Wyoming Division.
This is a super informative, colorful and exciting publication.
—By Don Heimburger, Heimburger House Publishing Co.