Becoming an Armchair Model Railroader (Temporarily)

It seems like being an "armchair model railroader" gets a bad rap all the time.  This is likely because of the stereotype floating around that armchair railroaders are these guys who have been thinking about building a layout for 20+ years, have collected every piece of rolling stock known to man for their prototype, and have simply not put out the effort to do something about it.

However, I feel there is value in being an armchair model railroader from time to time to give oneself a chance to learn and absorb information that would help them in their modelling efforts.  When I first got into narrow gauge, the whole thing seemed so magical, and every freelanced layout I saw seemed like the creator of it had so much fun sitting around thinking up crazy scenes to put on their layout.  I've since learned that really great freelancing doesn't stem from a creative imagination so much as it does a deep knowledge of prototype railroads.

And surprisingly enough, often times the prototypes themselves have more surprises than we could have likely dreamed up ourselves.

That and somehow I've accumulated a mass of reading material which will keep me busy several months into the future.  With that, I've decided to become an armchair model railroader for a bit.  After all, I have attempted 6-8 layouts up to this point with various success (and have one which could possible work out at the moment).  But taking some time to learn more about railroads and planning a layout seems like a good call.

Here's what's up on the docket for reading:

American Narrow Gauge Railroads by George Hilton

I'm just about finishing up part 1 of this book and it's been one of the best books on narrow gauge railroading I've read.  I plan to do a complete book review once I'm done so I won't mention too much about it here other than Hilton's intention in doing the research for this book was to discover what the "narrow gauge movement" was as a whole and to document it's uptick and decline.

This book is probably the place that every narrow gauge fan should start in learning about prototype railroads.

Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods by A. Bray Dickinson

This is the story of the North Pacific Coast Railroad (later North Shore Railroad) that ran north from San Fransisco up to the forests of northern California.  This railroad packed a ton of action and a lot of really interesting scenes including narrow gauge car float operations.

The Story of the Pacific Coast Company by Gerald M. Best

A book covering, as the title very clearly says, the Pacific Coast Company and railroad which ran throughout California.  The end of the book also includes a little about how the company got involved in narrow gauge in Washington state with the likes of the Seattle & Walla Walla.

The Rainbow Route by Robert Sloan

Books by Sundance Publications are likely no stranger to narrow gauge fans.  I've only found high remarks for their books but because of the price have stayed away from them.  However, I was able to find a copy of the Rainbow Route at a good price and decided to try it out.  I'm hoping it lives up to it's hype!

Rio Grande Southern Album by Philip A. Ronfor

A short book which has full color photos of the RGS during railfan trips a few years before it ended operations.  It's one of the few narrow gauge books I've see that was in color, but it is relatively short being only 40 pages.  This book, for me, wasn't about the information as much as it was the color photography.

Logging Railroads of the West by Kramer Adams

This was one of those Amazon "cheap books" (there are currently a few copies listed at $0.01) which seemed like too good a deal to not pick up.  Though I haven't read through it yet, I did look through the photos and those alone were already worth the cost.  There also seems to be an index in the back of every known logging railroad in the west.

Model Railroader Special Issues DVD by Kalmbach Publishing

My wife bought this for me for our anniversary as a companion to the 75th Anniversary DVD from this past Christmas.  The DVD hasn't shipped yet so I can't say much about it, other than it includes all the issues of MR's Great Model Railroads and Model Railroad Planning, plus all their misc. special issues like "Railroading in the 1950s".  I'm sure there will be many hours of reading on that DVD.

Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette 1980 to 1994

I happened to find an individual selling off their 14 year collection of narrow gauge gazette (89 issues in total).  Man I'm going to have a lot of reading.