
Sometime around the Christmas holidays during one of those bits in Ontario where we ventured into bookstores carefully bemasked, I picked up the Model Rail annual How to Build a Model Railway: Ultimate guide to making buildings. It definitely provided some enjoyable reading.
While I think “ultimate guide” is a bit of hyperbole, this volume is structure build articles and structure build adjacent articles from cover to cover. (Save the few front and back pages of on-topic adverts I so greatly prefer to the North American interstitial approach). As the cover says, over 30 build articles. There are also a couple of how to research your prototype and a bit extolling the merits of scratch building.
The subjects are entirely UK based but other than making me wistful for thatched roofs and castles, the techniques covered are generally applicable and run the gamut of all media, card, clay, resin, plastic, wood and plaster. No whole etched metal kits covered but metal is in there too!
There is probably limited merit in reviewing an ephemeral publication such as this but I wanted to take note of the good work the Model Rail staff produces. I enjoy the regular Model Rail when I can get it and this was more and denser than that.