About a week ago I received my recently ordered book by Lance Mindheim: 'How to operate a modern era switching layout'. Lance is a very talented model railroader and besides owning a layout building company, has written several articles in the model railroading press, and several books.
His layouts have inspired many to build a similar layout, often set in the same area and era, to a similar theme, as the one he currently owns himself.
His books and subjects are all about simplicity, and realism. None of his track plans in previous books have a zillion tracks and switches, nor are they huge in size, but they are well designed and should be fun to operate. But how do you operate something in a realistic manner?
This is precisely what his newest book aims to explain, and it does.
As in previous books, I find it well written, clear and concise, and in an enjoyable manner. If there's one lesson that stands out in this books (and by his own admission), it is to slooooww down, take time for every move, don't run at high speeds, and think about what would happen in the real world. I would thoroughly recommend it. If there's only one criticism (if you can call it that, and it also goes for his previous books) is that I would prefer the pages on the inside to be of a different quality, perhaps glossy, as opposed to the laser printed look and feel they have now. You get it at Amazon, among others, and for the UK there's even a bookstore that has imported several copies of it for ordering. The link to all the info is found here , on Lance's own site.
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