Hi all,

I took my own sweet time to read this book.

If this intended as a coffee-table book - I guess the PR would indicate that’s the case - then I have to say:

Any of the other coffee-table books I own are much better. In “Gorgeous Garden Railways” the text is so-so and the captions are sometimes “interesting” and quite often had me scratching my head.

The pictures are all over the place - starting with the quality of the pictures (I’m not referring to the archive pictures from decades ago!), the focus on the object/subject, right through the colour rendition and the print quality.

If this is a book to show the uninitiated the full spectrum of railways in the garden, fine, it probably does that. It also confirms what most of the people in the smaller scales e.g. scale model railroaders, suspected all along: not much modeling and lots of toys.

What did I like about the book?

Anything to do with plants, at least that was useful.

I also liked the pictures which showed large sections of the layouts, good reminder on how to do it and how not to do it.

As mentioned a while back Appendix 2 is, at least in my opinion, a joke.
Other reference sections are so-so.
Will I keep it or flog it on amazon.com? I’ll keep it! Since a picture is worth a thousand words, it will be handy to show what I mean by a hotch-potch layout.

I saw a copy of this book…thumbed through it; naugh; not worth the price. Instead I bought a case of bheer and went home to look through a few old copies of GR magazine, and saw much the same stuff, over and over.

Thanks Hans, for doing a proper review…

Sad to say, I wasn’t all that impressed, either. There are much better photos being published here, and “over there,” by folks that we count as friends. Their work wasn’t included. Sad.

I guess if you want photos of overgrown gardens with track and toy-like trains, then this is the book for you.

You might note the cover of the latest GR. Another photo that might be “Cute” to some, but lacks anything “Great”

There are fare better pictures, as Steve points out; roaming these sites.

I think I’ll give GR a rest for a while. It will save me around $9 Cnd a month, that will buy at least a set of Kadee couplers that I can find better use for.

Just as Steve and Fred posted , there are some really good pictures at the various web sites , that make you look to see if its real or just outside . Somewhere recently was a photo by Marty and a AC mallet that really looked good , and another by Greg E.
Just like here , when you arrive on the home page , a nice photo greets you .
Share the joy .