Chapters are:
- Skips
- Tippers
- Hoppers
- Tippler and tubs
- Opens
- Flats
- Tanks
- Air compressors
- Transporters
- Special wagons
- Coaches
- Track (general)
- Points
- Turntables
- Crossings
- Emptying methods
- Derailments
Each chapter is composed of photos with long captions, two per A5 page. There are also some vintage adverts for equipment. Most images are black & white, but a few are colour. Paper quality for the 68 pages is excellent so the images aren't muddy.
If there is one thing to be learned from studying the photos, it's that there's no such thing as standard rolling stock, and pretty much any design a modeller can imagine will have a prototype somewhere out there!
I can understand why this is an unusual subjest - enthusiasts like to take photos of locomotives, and hardly any appear on these pages. When you are using film, the temptation is to stick to the exciting stuff, and so the rolling stock isn't captured, but we all need far more wagons than locos (yes we do!) so we ought to have more photos of the latter.
I picked my copy up second-hand, and Plateway Press don't list it as a current publication sadly, but it's worth keeping your eyes open for.
5 comments:
Crikey Phil. Railway modellers should have more wagons than locos. That’s a bit radical. It’ll never catch on π
It's an excellent book, a copy of which sits on my bookshelf. It's a great source of inspiration for quirky little industrial scenes, especially if you fancy hand making some track.
A similarly interesting publication is Roy C. Links O14 handbook. Not actually a book but a small black ring binder. As well as details on the original O14 range of kits it has a section on prototypes you could model. This includes quite a few further photos by Sydeny, albeit with more locos visible. Would be much harder to find a copy of this though than the trackwork book, but if you do stumble across a copy it's certainly worth buying just for the prototype section.
Steve - To be fair, it's a lesson I've yet to learn. :-)
Mark - I'll keep an eye out for the O14 book. It sounds just like my sort of thing. Thanks.
Hi Phil,
as Mark observes, it is indeed an excellent book and of course Sydney Leleux researched, photographed and wrote a lot about industrial narrow gauge subjects well before there was the level of interest/exposure it gets nowadays.
Just a cautionary note concerning Roy's 0-14 handbook; it came with most of the modelling stuff but some of the other sections were supplements to be purchased separately...I am pretty sure that much of the prototype content fell into this category, so if purchasing a copy unseen it would be worth checking what sections it actually contains, especially since I've seen some pretty high prices when copies appear on the market!
Dave Janes, who took over the RCL narrow gauge range from Roy, was talking about re-publishing the handbook and supplements but I don't know whether he got around to doing it.
I don't actually know how complete my own handbook is...it's an early one with yellow cover/black writing and I remember buying several of the supplements but I'm not certain I have every one Roy produced.
Pretty sure the "Three Small Railways" section was a supplement, one of the lines featured was the inspiration for my own 0-14 layout which you photographed a few years ago.
Cheers,
Simon.
Good point Simon, I'd forgotten it was original published/sold in parts. I bought mine second hand as a complete volume, and given that it has a contents page, detailing all the sections (Track & Turnouts, Rolling Stock, Locomotives, Equipment & Plant, and The Prototype) I wonder if there was a second printing where it was sold complete, especially as mine doesn't have a yellow cover.
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