Playing With Trains by Sam Posey.

I found this book by chance on Amazon, and thought that it might make good holiday reading. I was right.

Sam Posey is an American model railway enthusiast, ex-race car driver and sports commentator who grew up with Lionel trains. When his son was born he embarked on building a layout that they could both enjoy together, the story of the layouts construction forms the first part of the book. The writer becomes obsessed with the layout, which starts out as fairly freelance but morphs into something larger based on the ill-fated Colorado Midland, taking sixteen years to finish. The story follows his early attempts, and frustrations, his finding help in the shape of Rolf, who works in the local model shop, to the layout being featured in Model Railroader (twice), and his diagnosis with Parkinsons.

The second part of the book sees the writer visiting several well-known modelers to try and understand how they tick. The book shows us that there are two camps of modeler is the States, those that concentrate on scenery and are content to just watch trains go by and those that put realistic operation first and foremost (although its interesting to note that the operation guys featured have layouts with first class scenery). He also takes to the rails himself, driving a Baldwin which he describes with great emotion.

The book is highly readable, so well written in fact that I finished it in the first two days of my break.
My copy came from across the ocean, cost me whole ten pence plus £2.80 postage.
Recommended.

Paul.