New Model Railroad Book - "How to Design a Model Railroad" by Lance Mindheim

I'm a bit of a Lance Mindheim fan and I had to pick up his latest book "How to Design A Model Railroad" from Kalmbach Books even though I must have half a dozen layout design books plus numerous track plan books. All of his previous books have been self-published so its nice to see Kalmbach recognize his talents. I think I first came across his work when pictures of his East Rail layout were published in MR (Model Railroader) and later found some more of his work in a few issues of the LDJ (Layout Design Journal), I was pretty much hooked at that point and bought every book he published after that (much like Iain Rice, if I see the name I'm going to buy the book).

I appreciate is approach to keeping things as simple as possible but still managing to keep a design interesting. That approach is well emphasized in this new book.

This is likely to become my go to design book at this point. I think one of the reasons for that is Lance approaches layout design in a very integrated manner. Much like the Armstrong "Given's and Druthers" Lance asks his clients a series of questions but geared more to determine what the client can realistically achieve in the time they have to devout to the layout. This helps discern what the client is really looking for before getting into the nitty gritty Armstrong style questions. I can here it already what the heck are you talking about? 

Let's look at this from the standpoint of the classic armchair modeler who accumulates kits, rolling stock and locomotives with the idea of building their dream layout...as soon as they figure it out. The questions that Lance asks helps those people get out of the armchair and get focused on what that layout really may be. We don't always need to fill the basement just because we can doesn't mean we should. There isn't much point in filling a basement with a mountain layout if it turns out your interest is really in recreating your childhood memories of railroads in Chicago.

Then the design process can really start but the approach is very different from that of other designers, at least in my opinion. He is still following the same "rules" he established in his self-published "How to Design a Small Switching Layout" available on Amazon, but in a more refined form and showing how he uses his own process in designing layouts for his clients.

This is a very readable book, Lance has always been a good writer but this new book really shows a level of refinement that I really appreciate especially in the presentation of the material. Combine this with his self published "Model Railroading as Art" book and you have a winning one-two combination.