The book titled Model Railroading was written by the Lionel staff of experts according to the cover. At a recent train show I purchased two Model Railroading paperbacks, one a 3rd enlarged edition published 1950, fifth printing, dated 1953 and an older 5th edition without publish or printing date but with the same picture on the cover as the 5th ed. reprint. I believe I paid 25 cents for each and they were in pieces, mildewed and in separate Ziploc bags so they really were not much of a bargain.
I have gotten some practice at gluing falling apart old books of my own family and others. After letting the basket case MR books set out in the sun a few hours, I wiped the old Model Railroading books pages with mildew down with 70% rubbing alcohol in an attempt to remove it after reading that Google said it may help. The books were in single pages and in many groups of 10 to 20 pages as the glue in the binding had deteriorated. I glued them back together with original Elmer’s glue and placed strips of wax paper between each pair of separated pages and clamped them together for a day or so. I had to remake the edge of the MR 3rd ed. binding with a strip of old T shirt cloth and glue and then relabeled it. When finished I store each book in a Ziploc bag with a couple of canisters of silica gel from pill bottles in an attempt to keep them dry and hinder mildew renewal.
When I got them readable, I compared the two editions. Both Table of Contents are the same. Some of the chapters are the same and some have been modified or modernized. The one that changed the most is chapter 11 on Yard Buildings. In the 3rd edition MR had few good pages of interest to me. They involved how to build a hand operated turn table and a 3 stall round house, using 1950s style building methods. I built a 1950s style O27 layout with a scratch built turn table and round house in the 1970s and still have it up and running and the topic on my building it is on the OGR forum here:
https://ogrforum.com/...fties-era-027-layout
Here are some pictures of pages from the 3rd edition on the TT and RH.
The 3rd ed. uses a "Control Wheel" protruding out the edge of the layout to turn the TT. (the "Control Wheel" can be seen in the first photo side view above, shown labeled on left near bottom). I used a clothes dryer belt and hand crank to turn the TT I built on my layout. The 3rd ed. uses wheels to allow the TT to turn on its base and I used a 6 inch diameter lazy Susan bearing. The 3rd ed. also mentioned three stalls is the least to use to build a good looking RH.
The 3rd edition TT and RH section (pages 136-141) was replaced in the 5th edition with a section on transfer tables (pages 136-137) and claim they are more modern. They are more modern and many diesels do not have to be turned around. Of course us real 1950s and prior years railroading fans love turn tables and the fact they can turn an engine and coal tender around and “dog gone it they just look and operate better”.
Another major change in the two editions is the 3rd edition had a track plan section of 16 pages of blue print style (with white print) plans versus the 5th edition track plan section of 24 pages standard print.
So I learned that the latest edition of a multiyear printed book is not necessarily better in all cases and it may be worthwhile to procure a copy of the Model Railroading 3rd edition.
Charlie
