Research and Inspiration Part 4 - New Books (and a re-think)

Perusing the Model Railroader magazine caused me to realise that Kalmbach (the publisher) do a whole range of books.  Two were swiftly ordered and proved to be a mine of information.

The Logging railroads explained how "skidders" which have been made by one of the G scale manufacturers worked, which intrigued me since they look like a boiler on a flat wagon.  It also explained that unless I was modelling a few particular places where there was some interchange with the general rail network, then a logging railroad is often self contained and there wouldn't be passenger coaches or freight wagons.  There might a morning and evening coach for workers, and a flat car taking supplies up to a camp, but otherwise its logs, logs and yet more logs.   I was also discovering that logging wagons (like ore wagons) tended to command a reasonable premium on ebay, presumably because lots of people shared my dream.

The Freight Yard book was extremely inspirational given that the mood was swinging towards a realistic idea of a (small) freight yard on the patio.   Very American in theme but I'm assuming that the principles apply to railways all over.  If not, then I'll just have to say "It's my railway, and I'm having fun with it".  That said I do want to avoid the "United Nations" that I had as a child where a German Baggage coach (with moving roller doors) happily rubbed shoulders with some Rocky Mountaineer stuff (Observation car was good) and on the goods side I think it was assorted British with a mixture of Guards vans (and did I mention that the locomotives were Belgian and German?).

Broad themes were now beginning to emerge.  There was the American theme (both large company and small company), German historical and German modern whilst doing anything around the UK appeared difficult.  I was starting to gravitate towards LGB because all their stuff is designed to cope with tight curves and there were comments abut it's durability (an elephant can stand on the track), reliability, and ease of use (large wheel flanges to keep them on the track) given that I'd decided that I would not be doing live steam or radio control.  The downside of LGB was that they got into a big financial mess a few years ago, and the original parent company went bankrupt/into administration, so what did the future hold?  The rescuers themselves (Marklin) then seem to have got into a financial mess as well.  Both are now out of whatever trouble they were in and trading.  Alan from the G scale society had already said at the show to try and do as much as you could (especially on couplings and wagons/coaches) as it should make life less difficult than it could be.  If I didn't do logging, and carried on with the freight yard, then how about a small goods yard with a preservation line attached to it, or a private railway delivering wagons in some sort of National Park.  The start set I'd been looking at came with two locos - one steam and one diesel and it was trying to rationalise how they came to exist on the same line at the same time. Based upon memories of the preservation lines around the UK and Germany, then it came down to Steam Engine for show, diesel to do all the mundane work.