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Track Planning for Realistic Operation: Prototype Railroad Concepts for Your Model Railroad (Model Railroader)(3rd Edition) Paperback – Illustrated, January 29, 2018
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Provides step-by-step design techniques and track planning tips to save model railroaders time, money, and headaches. This must-have book also covers aspects of prototype freight and passenger operations, route design, and contemporary railroading.
- Print length146 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKalmbach Publishing Company
- Publication dateJanuary 29, 2018
- Reading age14 years and up
- Dimensions8.26 x 0.22 x 10.72 inches
- ISBN-100890242275
- ISBN-13978-0890242278
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Product details
- Publisher : Kalmbach Publishing Company; 3rd ed. edition (January 29, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 146 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0890242275
- ISBN-13 : 978-0890242278
- Reading age : 14 years and up
- Item Weight : 13.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.26 x 0.22 x 10.72 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #592,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #107 in Model Trains
- Customer Reviews:
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The only real downside, as mentioned by another reviewer here, is the terrible formatting of the manual itself. A large share of the real “meat” is in the sidebars and graphics which are almost obscured by dark blue background and tiny, all-caps print. You truly need bright light and magnifying glass to read it. What a disservice by the publisher to such an otherwise excellent book. I’ll still give the author a five star; the publisher a one star.
If you want a good overview of problems real railroads face and then how to solve those problems or model those problems in a model, this IS what you are looking for. This all about how to design a layout that can then support a simulation of real movements of trains. The first half of the book is mostly describing real life train movements and track work (from a perspective of studying it for modeling purposes only) with a scattering of "here's how to adapt it". The second half of the book really buttons down and focuses on layout design. He presents not only some rules of thumb, but a planning system that is not only abstracts away scale, but also the radius by figuring a size of square based on minimum radius and then using those squares to manage your dimensions. He also explains in detail radii and easements and a fair bit on taking real railroad lines and adapting them to a model.
A good book, but do realize what you're getting. This isn't "the one book that teaches you everything", but a good set of techniques to add to your arsenal. And yes, there's probably not anything here you can't glean from internet sources, this is just a compact way to get at it.
Yes, I plan on using this information to prepare routes in Trainz: A New Era. This outstanding modeling environment provides excellent tools to create model railroad layouts similar to those shown in this book, but without a lot of the space constraints that plague the modeler. This is a great resource to provide the details needed to understand how railroads really operate.
The book has two major parts. The first part of the book describes basic railroad operations, such as loading and unloading, assembling cars into trains, moving trains, etc. The second part looks at how to design a practical model, what standards to use, minimal curves, layout shapes, etc. It has a lot of great ideas, with many pictures and schematics to satisfy both advance and novice modelers. Great book!
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Più che track planning for realistic operations potevano chiamarlo: "principi generali dell'esercizio ferroviario".
NON lo ricomprerei affatto.

