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Shelf Layouts for Model Railroads
Learn how to build a shelf layout by exploring the possibilities, practicalities, and challenges of linear layout design in a variety of layouts with construction details.
- GenresRailways
87 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 28, 2020
A very practical and modern guide to building shelf layouts, I've used his advice to build my current shelf layout and I'm looking at his lighting setups (which covers LEDs unlike older books). Not a bad guide for other hobbies needing display space. One of the easiest ways for those of us who live in small spaces to have our own layouts, especially in California, basements??? ha! Garage?? not in my case!.
My current layout, a work in progress.
My group's sectional layout, one way to have a big layout
My current layout, a work in progress.
My group's sectional layout, one way to have a big layout
August 31, 2025
An excellent book for those looking into shelf layouts and perhaps one of Rice’s best. Full of great tips, practical ideas, and humor, along with beautifully rendered layouts full of ideas and the philosophies behind them. Recommended for anyone interested in building layouts within a budget of space.
November 18, 2017
How to do a railroad on one or more shelves.
June 11, 2012
I have a small shelf area in my office that I have been toying with turning into a modest N-scale layout now that my home layout is just about done. Since it's just a shelf, and since I really have no experience with such things, I thought I would get this book, which is a how-to manual about shelf layouts.
I was disappointed with this book. The first 20 pages or so are devoted to generic techniques, which could be applied anywhere. But most of it is spent detailing example layouts that, although they are technically "shelf" layouts (defined by being 2' wide or less, and anchored to the wall rather than to the floor), they are almost all room-sized mega-layouts, filling whole basements or attic spaces. If you want to make a small layout on an actual book shelf in your house, don't bother with this book, because there is literally nothing here to help you achieve that. Only a couple of smaller examples (such as one filling an entire closet) are provided at all, and the vast majority are no different from what you'd get in books that are not "shelf layout" specific.
I don't mind that Mr. Rice spent some space in the book showing the more elaborate shelf layouts one can make, but I was highly disappointed in how little space is devoted to making something small that would fit on an actual shelf. Maybe he thinks nobody needs help doing that, or that such a layout would be "boring." But it seems to me that this is the real challenge -- making an interesting scene and some interesting operational trackage in a 3 foot by 1.5 foot space. Doing that well is much more difficult than doing a wrap-around-the-basement scene that's the same width, because in the latter case you have so much more to work with.
I'm disappointed with this book in rather the same way I'd be if I had bought a book about "how to write good short stories" and, after 20 pages of basic writing advice (paragraph structure, sentence variety, etc), the author gave example after example of 100-page novellas, and no examples of how to write 5- or 10-page short stories. It's the same thing here. Instead of giving me what I'd describe true shelf layouts (layouts that fit on a real-world bookshelf you'd find in any normal house), the author gave me room-sized, but narrow, layouts.
Finally, although the author is a pretty talented water-colorist, I honestly did not find his personal water-color illustrations as useful as I would have found layouts done in real layout software (the type they use in Model Railroader magazine spreads) and a lot more photographs of what he was describing. It's very hard to picture many of these things and step-by-step photos would have helped immensely.
If you want to make a narrow, around-the-room layout, this book is helpful. If you want to make actual shelf layouts on your book case or something, then you need to look elsewhere, because not one of the layouts presented in the book would fit on a normal book shelf.
I was disappointed with this book. The first 20 pages or so are devoted to generic techniques, which could be applied anywhere. But most of it is spent detailing example layouts that, although they are technically "shelf" layouts (defined by being 2' wide or less, and anchored to the wall rather than to the floor), they are almost all room-sized mega-layouts, filling whole basements or attic spaces. If you want to make a small layout on an actual book shelf in your house, don't bother with this book, because there is literally nothing here to help you achieve that. Only a couple of smaller examples (such as one filling an entire closet) are provided at all, and the vast majority are no different from what you'd get in books that are not "shelf layout" specific.
I don't mind that Mr. Rice spent some space in the book showing the more elaborate shelf layouts one can make, but I was highly disappointed in how little space is devoted to making something small that would fit on an actual shelf. Maybe he thinks nobody needs help doing that, or that such a layout would be "boring." But it seems to me that this is the real challenge -- making an interesting scene and some interesting operational trackage in a 3 foot by 1.5 foot space. Doing that well is much more difficult than doing a wrap-around-the-basement scene that's the same width, because in the latter case you have so much more to work with.
I'm disappointed with this book in rather the same way I'd be if I had bought a book about "how to write good short stories" and, after 20 pages of basic writing advice (paragraph structure, sentence variety, etc), the author gave example after example of 100-page novellas, and no examples of how to write 5- or 10-page short stories. It's the same thing here. Instead of giving me what I'd describe true shelf layouts (layouts that fit on a real-world bookshelf you'd find in any normal house), the author gave me room-sized, but narrow, layouts.
Finally, although the author is a pretty talented water-colorist, I honestly did not find his personal water-color illustrations as useful as I would have found layouts done in real layout software (the type they use in Model Railroader magazine spreads) and a lot more photographs of what he was describing. It's very hard to picture many of these things and step-by-step photos would have helped immensely.
If you want to make a narrow, around-the-room layout, this book is helpful. If you want to make actual shelf layouts on your book case or something, then you need to look elsewhere, because not one of the layouts presented in the book would fit on a normal book shelf.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews