Model Railroader's Guide to Mountain Railroading Paperback – November 30, 2011

I've read a lot of Tony Koester's books but I was genuinely surprised with this book -- in a good way. A lot of the books Model Railroader publishes lean very strong on the physical part of "how-to". For the past few years Koester has written titles delving more into the design part of model railroad. However those titles have tended to be very broad and, in my opinion, not as effective as they could have been. They lacked focus in a sense.Mountain Railroading seems to address this shortcoming and rather well. It's not a book about how to lay track or build plaster mountains. It's a book about designing a specific type of model railroad. Koester uses this focus to talk about the highs and lows of having a layout full of mountains, from difficulties in operation to leveraging the "clinging to the mountain side" look when designing the benchwork.Being primarily a narrow gauge model railroader I'll admit perhaps I may be a bit biased in this regard but the book actually contained a chapter on narrow vs. standard gauge for mountain railroads, delving into some pros and cons of both. I was happy to see narrow gauge getting acknowledgment as a serious contender for mountain railroads. The book also covers some other interesting topics like what kind of motive power were likely to be seen in the mountains (this chapter alone ended up having me discover the Milwaukee Road's electrified line through Idaho and Montana).It might sound funny, but my overall reaction after finishing the book was wanting there to be an equivalent book for both prairie and shore front railroads as well. The focus of the book really gives it it's value, and I'm really hoping Model Railroader/Koester turn this into a series.

Good look at mountain railroading for model railroaders. But, like most, if not all of Kalmbach's books, they seem to just touch the subject, but don't go into any meaningful depth and/or detail on the subject. In fact, as one reads thru this book, as well as their other publications, one will pause and say "this seems very familiar, and I know I read this material before. . " And, chances are they did in back issues of Model Railroader, for that's where most of the material in these books come from. However, these books are useful as they gather together all of that previously published material into a single publication. For newer modelers that don't have a closet full of back issues they can be worth the price - albeit $22.+ for a soft cover / 128 page text is a bit much - esp if one feels the need to gather up a large # of these books.

This was an interesting book. The author weaves together real mounting RRs and top notch model mountain RRs an provided quite a bit of useful information. I am a rank amateur in model RRing but I still found the information quite accessible. I should not, it is no a how to manual per se'. Over all a worth while book.

Again great book railroad modelers. This get you brain juices flowing and make want mountains on layout.

The pictures looked advanced leaving me to think I would fail at this. They include step-by-step instructions and I was able to keep up and made some scenes even look better. I was really surprised!

As with all of Tony Koester's stuff, it mostly deals with earlier era railroading, not much modern era info.

this book has a lot of pictures and articles about the eastern half of the united states and lacks more mountain railroading coming out of the west. should have more about the rockies and about the northwest to balance out the book.

Good ideas for model railroading

This volume like many of the "Model Railroader" series of books provides many nice colour photographs of both full-sized and model mountain railroads, but is short on layout plans and practical ideas on building a mountain railroad. Chapters include the "magic of mountain railroads, standard versus narrow gauge, the pros and cons of mountain railroads,characteristics of mountain railroads, motive power, desigen and operational tips and some example photographs. There are only a few small layout diagrams. Perhaps I was expecting too much from this book,but unfortunately it turned out like many of the MR books, lots of nice pictures, but light in substance in my opinion.

Excellent price and fast service - brilliant!

not as much pictures or information about mountain model railroading as one might expect

Manchmal habe ich das Gefühl Tony Koester hat das beinahe Alleinrecht auf Model Railroader Publikationen abonniert. Und die Allegheny Midland (seine Modellbahn) ist nun wirklich langsam ausgemolken.Trotzdem ist das eine oder andere MR Buch von ihm sehr nützlich und mit guten Informationen gefüllt.Leider dieses meiner Ansicht nach nicht so. Hier wird in Wort und Bild das Thema Bergbahnen beschrieben, Streckenweise werden aber nur Prototyp Fotos gezeigt (oft Rio Grande und Apalachen), sehr wenige nützliche Tipps sind es diesmal. Etwa wie man Inselplatten so gestaltet, dass sich Operateure beim Zugfahren nicht anrempeln, und ein wenig über Kurven. Aber so richtig klüger fühle ich mich nach dem Lesen dieses Buches nicht und ich Baue eine Bergstrecke. Hier hätte man über Modellbahnbetrieb mit Schubloks, maximale Steigungen etc. berichten können, das Thema Helix hätte man nicht so lieblos kurz erwähnen sollen, sondern mal zeigen können wie man eine baut und auf was man achten muss.Also, persönlich bin ich nicht so begeistert von dem Buch.

Eine ausführliche Beschreibung dieses Themas. Anhand praktischer Beispiele vom Original und als Modell wird der Leser durch das Buch geführt. Schmalspur, Waldbahnen, Kohleminen und spezielle Lokomotiven werden vorgestellt. Besonderheiten der Gleisführung im Original sowie im Modell und die Betriebsführung werden beschrieben.