Customer Reviews

Gorgeous Garden Railways

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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

Railway gardening is combination of model railroading and designed gardening. Expertly co-authored by Marc Horovitz and Pat Hayward, Gorgeous Garden Railways is an impressive showcase of beautifully intricate model towns and railroad communities combined with backyard gardening and introduces readers to a short history of the hobby. Gorgeous Garden Rail-ways is a beautifully presented compendium of trains and rolling stock used in garden railways, including miniature buildings, structures and bridges that line the track, horticultural requirements of garden railroads, how to incorporate ponds and water features, and a vivid pictorial tour of some of the world's most beautiful garden railways. Gorgeous Garden Railways is very highly recommended for all model railway enthusiasts, as well as landscapers and gardeners intrigued by the addition of wonderful model railroads as a part of their garden esthetics.

Great book of past and present Garden Railways.
excelent photos.

Not what I thought it would be. Like another reviewer said, this is a coffee table book without a hard cover. The contents make me think they had a bunch of left over photos from the magazine (Garden Railways) and the publisher told them to make a book out of them.