The name Iain Rice should appear familiar to those of you who read Model
Railroader as he has become a regular contributor to their pages. Iain hails
from Clun,
This book is organized into seven
chapter as follows: Introduction, Chapter One – The Acorn and the Oak Tree;
Chapter Two – Preliminaries; Chapter Three – Siting and Staging the Layout;
Chapter Four – Designing the Infrastructure; Chapter Five – Designing for
Visual Effect; Chapter Six – Designing for Operation; and Chapter Seven –
Examples, broken down into Section 1, Rural Idylls, Section 2 ‘Bitsa’
Stations and Section 3, Urban and Industrial.
In chapter one, The Acorn and the Oak Tree, Iain explains that he
defines the layout design as “the combination of track, landscape and
buildings”. He adds, “These are the two key aspects – the idea, and the
realization – that are immutably linked in the layout-designing process, just
as in order for an acorn to become an oak tree, it must weary itself with a
century or two of growing.”
Rice explains in chapter two entitled Preliminaries the importance
of planning. He feels the underpinning to any plan is “to have a very firm
concept of the theme of the layout”.
In chapter three, Siting and Staging the Layout, Rice covers how
to cope with having only a small space to build your layout. He then goes on the
cover such topics as “Staging the Layout”, “Viewing Height”,
“Proscenium Arch”, “Convex Layouts”, “Side Screens”,
“Backdrops”, and “Lighting”.
In chapter four, Designing the Infrastructure, Iain covers
benchwork in a section called “Layout Structure Design”. After first
covering the design of what Rice names the “baseboard” structure, be moves
on to what he calls “structures for staging” – the proscenium arch fascia,
the backdrop support, and the lighting gantry.
In chapter five, Designing for Visual Effect, Rice commends his
readers to two of what he calls “Design Aids”. While they may not be new to
most modelers, recall Rice’s book is eleven years old, they bear repeating. He
suggest modelers utilize the technique of building either mock-ups or build an
actual scale plan of the layout.
In chapter six, Designing for Operation, you will learn about the
British penchant for fiddle yards. You may recall a few years back that Paul
Dolkos introduced the readers of Model Railroader to this concept as a
result of a visit to
In the seventh and final chapter, Examples, fifteen small layouts
are described as well as illustrated. I found particularly instructive Iain’s
insight that “in terms of the small layout, it has long been obvious to me
that the cramped, confined industrial or inner-city location is far more
suitable as a subject than the more sprawling rural rhapsody usually chosen.”
I can be excused for siding with Rice as I am currently building an
urban-oriented layout in HO scale.
Honestly, I had, at times, felt I was reading a
foreign language, but any confusion was usually soon cleared away. I obtained my
copy of Rice’s book through the
Rice’s book was an enjoyable read. Do not make the mistake of dismissing this book because of its strong orientation toward British modeling. The principles enunciated in Rice’s pages are universal. I commend it to anyone serious about building a model railroad. Iain Rice should serve as particular inspiration for those of our division members planning a small layout. I hope someone will reprint and revise Model Railway Layout Design for an American audience. Kalmbach, are you listening?
Reviewed by Nicholas Kalis