Foreword

This book is intended primarily for people who have just obtained their first electric trains and would like to develop the hobby beyond an occasional session on the living-room floor where tracks and equipment get in somebody's way. It may help adults who are just starting a fascinating hobby, boys and girls old enough to handle a few tools fairly well, or parents of younger children, who will find themselves doing a good deal of the work—and enjoying it—on their offsprings' "toy."

It is written by an amateur who went through the mill himself and found that most books on the subject are too far advanced, designed for the already ardent hobbyist with considerable skill and a good tool chest. This book, therefore, starts from scratch with a train set, a transformer, and an oval of track. It assumes that the reader may know little or nothing about electricity, carpentry, and the allied arts that go into building a good model railroad. If the reader finds one section too elementary, he may welcome the fundamentals presented in another field about which he knows less.

The point is that you can build an attractive and busy model railroad without any particular skills or talents, without much available space, and without specialized equipment and tools. There are many different ways to perform most tasks connected with model railroad building; the author presents here those methods which he found satisfactory and which he knows others have proved acceptable. In each case he has endeavored to give several alternative procedures, but he lays no claim to having exhausted the many different methods that may be adopted with success. Scores of books have been written on model railroading and will continue to be written. When the reader becomes particularly interested in one aspect or another of model railroading, he can easily find more detailed information in books in his public library or hobby store. There are several good magazines in the field, also, that may provide helpful suggestions.

If this book serves as the springboard into a wider and more enjoyable experience with model railroading, it will have fulfilled its purpose. May it carry you successfully over the first hurdles of a hobby that can give you many years of absorbing pleasure!

Marshall McClintock

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