How to Build Model Railroad Benchwork

An excellent book, if not the best, on support structures for permanent model railroad layouts.Although this book doesn't feature all varieties of model railroad bases, and concentrates on permanent bases, the two that it focuses on, butt-end and l-girder, are the most common and most versatile, and can easily be used for portable layouts as well.Both styles are handled extremely well and the text thoroughly covers not only construction techniques and choice of materials but also points out things to consider and pitfalls to watch out for that will often catch out even experienced model railroaders in various situations. There are loads of handy tips and step-by-step guides for specific details and the diagrams are nice and clear.I have built so many layout benches (more than 20, some portable but most permanent), and always used butt-end frames for them and always encountered some issues that forced me to make compromises in my permanent layouts, and even my latest one has already thrown enough problems at me to make me take it down because in this case an l-girder structure is far more suitable. Thanks to the author, I now know when to use l-girder and when to use butt-end and also how to build much better butt-end frames than I ever have done before.