Title: How to build and operate a model railroad
First published: 1955
Description: I received a copy of this paperback book for Christmas, Dec 1956, when I was 12 years old.  I'm pretty sure it came with an American Flyer train set I had also received that Christmas, but it may have been something my parents bought separately.  My copy has no title page, no table of contents and no index. There are no flyleaves, no publisher attribution, and not even a copyright notice.  It has 160 pages, not counting 16 pages of B&W photos, and page one directly faces the inside of the front cover with the last page directly facing the inside of the back cover. The only sort of reference I've been able to find is the designation 'D1920' in the lower-left corner of the back cover. Oh, and the price on the front cover is 35 cents! I think all of this supports my recollection that it was included with the train set, and I'm pretty certain it was published as a not-so-subtle advertisement for A.C. Gilbert's American Flyer trains.  Nevertheless it is still an informative book with many useful descriptions of how to design, build and landscape a scale model railroad using products of any brand of model trains, although some of the techniques described are probably somewhat dated now.  There are many line-drawing illustrations throughout the book of layouts, techniques, etc., with 16 B & W photographs of a basic 'just out of the box' train set, a layout under construction and the finished layout with accessories added.  The front cover also has a color photo of a landscaped layout.  I can supply images of the front and back covers at a later date.
Subjects: American Flyer trains, Layout building, Management, Models, Railroads
People: A.C. Gilbert
LC classification: TF197 .M2