Gorgeous Garden Railways [Paperback]

Marc Horovitz (Author), Pat Hayward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

This book features large portraits and informative text on garden railroad landscaping, trains, infrastructure, ponds and water features, and other landscape challenges. Marc Horovitz, editor of Garden Railways, and Pat Hayward, horticultural editor of Garden Railways offer details that both model railroaders and garden enthusiasts will appreciate.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marc Horovitz is the founder and editor of Garden Railways magazine, the hobby's preeminent journal. He lives in Colorado.

Pat Hayward is the horticultural editor of Garden Railways. She lives in Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Kalmbach Books; 1st edition (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871162326
• ISBN-13: 978-0871162328
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous pictures, short on details, August 18, 2008

By 

Totally loco! (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gorgeous Garden Railways (Paperback)

I bought this as part of a four book purchase including "Getting Started in Garden Railroading: Build the Railroad of Your Dreams... in Your Own Backyard" by Allan Miller (5 stars), "Garden Railroading: Getting Started in the Hobby" by Garden Railways Magazine (4 stars), and "Practical Garden Railways" by Peter Jones (2 stars).

This is exactly as advertised. 140 pages of really nice pictures of garden railways. Don't look for it to provide any real practical suggestions on fixing problems but some of the photos may inspire layout ideas. It's also a good "coffee table" book as another reviewer mentioned.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous Garden Railways, May 24, 2006

By 

J. Scofield (Augusta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gorgeous Garden Railways (Paperback)

I just received this book from Amazon.com and it is a true winner. The photographs are large and show great detail. This is not a how-to book but one that shows what has been done by garden railroaders all over. It can give a garden railroader many ideas on how to create scenes or plantings for their railroad. I would like to have seen this book with hard bound covers as it is large format and truly a coffee table type book. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in model railroading, no matter what scale, indoors or outdoors.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gorgeous Book about Garden Railroads, June 12, 2006

By 

Paul D. Race "Writer, Teacher, Songwriter, Ra... (Springfield, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gorgeous Garden Railways (Paperback)

Marc Horovitz has edited Garden Railways magazine forever. He has contributed to or cowritten several books on the subject as well. And despite Marc's ability to "get his hands dirty" with a gardening or railroading project, he never forgets that the best garden railroads are more than the sum of their parts.

Marc and his cowriter Pat Hayward have put together the best "coffeetable book" on Garden Railroading ever. The emphasis is on the many dozens of "gorgeous" photographs, which range from the charming to the awe-inspiring.

But nobody, even the newest beginner, should be intimidated by this book. Rather Marc and Pat hope the book will encourage more and more people to get involved when they see what is possible. When you take a close look, you'll see that to the authors, the word "gorgeous" doesn't mean "unattainable by normal people," but "well-conceived, balanced, and attractive."

Marc's overall concern seems to be that each garden railroad should have integrity, that is, it should be designed, built, and planted in a way that is true, not only to the preferences of the gardener/railroader, but also to itself and to the land it occupies. In other words, Marc looks for a naturalistic setting and a consistent vision that is supported by the accessories and plantings.

True, some of the railroads shown in the book border on spectacular, but majority of them are simply well-conceived and well-executed versions of the garden railroads that many thousands of folks have already put into their back yards. Marc includes the disclaimer: "The railways shown in this book were built by experienced, dedicated hobbyists. But don't let that stop you; they were all beginners once."
In other words, nothing in this book has "Don't try this at home" stamped on it.

The contribution of Marc's coauthor, Pat Hayward, is visible, not only in her descriptions of appropriate garden railroad plants, but also in the choice of photographs that show effective use of plantings for each garden railroad.

Although Pat doesn't call out many of the species illustrated, the vast majority of plants shown in the book are readily available to most gardeners in North America. If you see something you like, chances are that if you take the book to a full-service nursery, they will be able to tell you the name of what you want, and whether it will survive in your region.

In short, Gorgeous Garden Railways allows readers to see many entirely different kinds of railroads and to see what is possible. Again, nothing in this book is labeled "Don't try this at home." The inspirational value alone is worth the investment.

By the way, the recently-added one-star review was by a person whose other reviews show that he hate almost everything but certain camera gadgets. If THAT reviewer would give the garden railroading community an even better book I would be glad to promote it. Sadly we'll have to comfort ourselves with the best book of this sort that has been published, well, ever. . ..

Paul Race - Lead Editor for Family Garden Trains