Shortlines You Can Model, Vol.1: Miami's Swamp Rat (Shortline Railroads You Can Model)

From the beginnings of the hobby, model rairoaders have designed and built their miniature railroads based on a piece of a real railroad or based on a railroad that is entirely created from their own imagination. There have been, and still are, model railroads that don't exist in "the real world," but are based on real locations, topography, and railroad operations, that "could have been." The prototype is a fiction, but it is a "plausible fiction." It is a common practice of those who design and build such railroads to write plausible histories to give rationale for their miniature railroad's existence and operation. Mindheim's book not only does this, but documents the narrative with photos of real places and equipment, and even adds a couple of real newspaper commentaries. Then he proceeds to show how a model railroad could be designed from this "prototype", and gives hints for building it with realism. It is only in the Conclusion to the book that the author reveals that the featured railroad is fictional and tells us how he made it seem authentic. He didn't do this to fool the reader, either for fun or profit (well, maybe fun), but to show how a model railroader can create and build a satisfying model railroad in setting, equipment, and operations if he or she can't find a suitable "real life" railroad to model. Besides, there have been few model railroads ever built of actual railroads that didn't have to compromise reality in terms of setting and industries, not to mention operations, in order to fit the space available. This is a fun book by Lance Mindheim and I would recommend it or any of his other books to anyone of any skill level that wants to build their own railroad and enjoy operating it.

Excellent reading. Very well written and explained very cleared.

While the book is a wealth of information it’s presented as a huge, “gotch-ya.” Everything is presented as an actual railroad with a back story. Then at the end it’s, “I made it all up,”. Unfortunately it spoiled my whole take on the book and the author.

Nice example of how to selectively compress even a small prototype railroad into a modest space.

Another well done book by Mindheim on ideas for a colorful shoreline model railroad.Good photos and history of the selected area plus modeling tips.