Product Description
This new book is aimed at all those who have started the hobby of buying a basic model railway kit and want to move from just laying the few pieces of track on the lounge floor to starting to build a model railway themselves or through joining a model railway club. Little has been written to help people wanting to construct a model railway by collecting components together rather than creating a detailed representation of a particular prototype. As the ready-to-run market is now producing such high quality models there is little reason to spend hours crafting items such as coaches when all the proprietary models are so good, and more time can be spent planning and developing the layout. The chapters about track, signaling and buildings will all look at a prototype layout to explain why the prototype is constructed as it is, and then explain how to transfer this to a model railway to ensure that the model is laid out in a believable and prototypical fashion. The author explains how proprietary items such as Peco track and Hornby buildings and platforms can be used and how their believability can be improved with repainting. The author is a railway modeler with many years experience and he explains the techniques of modeling at an appropriate level for the reader.

Product Description
It is many years since the “Past and Present” series visited London’s suburbs, and the privatization era as seen many developments ‘south of the river’. Since the Grouping of 1923 there have been many changes of ownership and livery, and a constant updating of rolling stock, although some examples lasted and continue to last well beyond their ‘sell-by date’. Some settings appear to have hardly changed over the years while others are completely unrecognizable. This wide-ranging pictorial survey covers: the ex-LSWR main line from Guildford by way of Weybridge, Surbiton and Wimbledon to Clapham Junction and Waterloo; lines to Kingston and Richmond via Wimbledon; Croydon and the former LB&SCR main lines from the coast to London Bridge and Victoria; Coulsdon, the Selhurst triangle, Addiscombe (trams for trains), and Crystal Palace; Beckenham and the former SER main lines to the Kent Coast; and, Bromley, Sidcup, Dartford, Charlton, Greenwich, New Cross and Clapham Junction to the London termini. This is a part of our rail network where there have been very few closures and which is generally booming and expanding. The Croydon Tramlink is featured as well as the new Overground system, still under construction, which takes the former East London Thames Tunnel underground network on from New Cross Gate to Croydon.

About the Author
Michael Baker is a regular Nostalgia Collection contributor and has written many books about the railways and buses of South London and the South of England, as well as being an authority on the railways of Ireland. A retired teacher, he lives in Wareham, Dorset.