Marc is not just another person that writes about garden railroads. He is someone that builds them and has a refined definition of what a garden railroad should be. All of his canons are based on many years of practical application in this hobby. Looking at the photographs in this book helps you see what the "text book" definition of a garden railroad is to Marc.

Marc's co-author, Pat Hayward, is very easy to spot at the garden railroad conventions that we attend each year. When most other people are taking photographs of the trains, Pat is taking photographs of how people use plants. Don't just think that the photographs that were selected are here because they are pretty. They can teach you how to use plants on your railroad. Her thirty years experience in horticulture make her the perfect teammate for selecting photographs for this new type of garden railroad book.

What I liked.

I liked that two experts in the field of garden railroads took a long time and looked through thousands of photographs. They used their personal filters and picked a collection of photographs that flow through the pages. They had less than 150 pages for photographs and did not have the luxury we enjoy at LSOL.com to shoot 20 photographs of the same item and show it from a dozen different angles.

I enjoyed the text that acts as the mortar that holds the photographs together. The photograph captions helped me understand a little bit about each photograph and gave me a little insight as to why it was selected for that section of the book.

I really liked looking back on Garden Railroads from the 1930's. This is how the book starts off. I am sure there are many of us that did not even know that garden railroads are that old. The first couple of photographs are in black and white. My son and I spent a long time looking at those images wondering how they did it without Kadee couplers, Wireless Remote Control and sectional track.

How did they get answers to questions when they could not just pop online ask a question at LSOL.com and get an answer the same day. It was like looking at photographs of the pioneers that traveled the Old West. You wonder how they made it and how exciting it must have been during this golden age of garden trains.

I liked that most of the photographs looked like they were taken in a garden setting. I know that it is fun to try and take a photograph of our railroad so that people think they are real trains, but that is not for me. I always like to see a photograph of a garden railroad look like a garden railroad.

There should be some recognizable element in the photograph that lets us know where we are. (My friend Marty is always excluded from this JDK tenet he is as real as it gets. See if you can find his several photographs in the book. They are just great!)

What I did not like.

I wish this book was available as a hard bound book. It would have been great to have this as a hardcover, stitched bound book sitting on our coffee table for guests that come over. As a hardbound book it would have a level of credibility that it will not get as a paper back.

Shame on the publishers for cheaping out. At least they could have printed some with a hardcover. Maybe in the next print run. They did add outer flaps on the cover to give the illusion, but it still is a softbound book.

A few of the larger photographs were not as clear and a little dark . It is possible that these were 35mm photographs that had to be scanned and needed to have a higher resolution scan or more time in Photoshop.

These two points do not take away from the overall uniqueness of this wonderful book.

Jo Anne and I, like Marc, have had the opportunity to tour some of the world's best garden railroads. We have taken over 40,000 photographs of hundreds and hundreds of railroads across the United States and have them posted at LSOL.com.

What we see in this book is what we have found across the United States. Each garden railroad is different.

Each railroad offers a unique perspective. When you attend different National Conventions across the country you will find a wide diversity among the railroads that you visit in each region.

There may be one or two that are similar, if they are designed by the same person, but the majority are as different as the people that created them. This book will let you see this diversity for a lot less than a road trip to the next National Convention.

Gorgeous Garden Railways will make a fine addition to your collection of Large Scale Garden Train books.

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