pete_mcfarlane Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 The recent thread on old Hornby catalogues got me thinking about some of the books on railway modelling I read as a kid. In particular the ones aimed directly at us 1980s kids. I owned an Usborn book - one of their large format paper backs. The page that stood out was a beautifully illustrated guide on how to model water - with various options including plaster and glass. Other books I remember from the local library included one with a picture of John Craven on the front (he of Newsround fame) and another Usborn book on how to interface your model railway or Scalectrix with the home computer (be it a Commodore 64 or a BBC Electron!) complete with BASIC source code to type in. Did anyone else come back from the library in the summer holidays with railway modelling books? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold slow8dirty Posted August 2, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 2, 2011 Yes! cant remember what it was called but it sowed seeds that have lasted. Was sort of an overview of all different scales and era's, UK, Europe and US, IIRC. Had a layout called North Tawton that kickstarted my GW interest. Lot of colour for the time, or is that just my rosetinted glasses? Matt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Delamar Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 I had one, looked older than 80s, showed how to do hills and scenery, had some nice illustrations one of Dent station I remember Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 Sorry for going OT, but I do remember seeing "High Gill" on the BBC programme "Corners" in May 1987, as I was home early from school after having a dental brace fitted. I never did get to see the layout, but ended up building alot of stock for it's sucessor. Still on the OHLE theme, I remember Johnny Ball giving a Lima 87's pan a good workout on one of his programmes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajt Posted August 2, 2011 Share Posted August 2, 2011 I owned an Usborn book - one of their large format paper backs. The page that stood out was a beautifully illustrated guide on how to model water - with various options including plaster and glass. I have that one too My mum recently handed it over and now my kids have lost it :-\ But I did have a look through it again before it disappeared. I also had a fantastic hardcover book my brother brought home for me which was a general overview of the hobby. It had chapters for each of the major scales, including S scale and up to miniature railways. It featured photos of many famous layouts of the time, both UK and US. It also had lots of pictures of individual models and stuff like Arthur Sherwood's tiny live steam models. I spent an awful lot of time looking through that book and wishing I could scatchbuild track and locos like I saw in the S scale and O scale chapters. The kids have lost this book too, which I'm pretty annoyed about. I also used to read the Lima catalogue quite a lot, looking at their example layouts. Regards, David. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 It wasn't really a 'kids' book, but Chris Ellis's "Practical Model Railways" was a book I always enjoyed reading back then. It had a Lima Western on the cover IIRC. A lot of it was taken from the original Airfix "Model Trains" magazine articles, which Chris edited of course, and still edits it's successor, Model Trains International, to this day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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