Guess what I found

Well, Shena found it for me. I'll give you a hint: we were in the used bookstore in Chilliwack. Scott may well have the best shot at this one.

Comments

"the" used bookstore? Don't tell me that Chilliwack only has one!

I predict some sort of railroad book, probably not authored in Britain. Perhaps something by Omar Lavallee?

There is more than one used bookstore in the Wack, but the other one is only really good for records, it's pretty useless for other stuff. There are 2 good ones that I know of, and possibly another one or two. And, no, Dave, you guess wrong. Try again!

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

I'm going to guess "Lords of the Line" by David Cruise? I just finished that book last week, and I noticed they had quite a few copies when I was in that particular bookstore.

For those feeling lost, the bookstore is called "The Bookman", and it's the absolute best used bookstore ever.

You've got the right shelf, but not quite right. It is a great used bookstore, highly recommended.

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

How large of a place is it?

I haven't spent much time in used bookstores recently. I suppose that I've just become too used to ordering used copies of books online (well, that and the stuff that I read tends to be fairly hard to find)

I'm just don't really keep track of who's putting out railroad-related books, so Lavallee is one of the very few authors that I know of.

It's a pretty good size store, and the shelves are crammed with books. I can say though that it's not a book.

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

If it's not a book, then I'll guess it's that issue of Model Railroader you needed to complete the series of articles on scratchbuilding in brass. (Or was it creating resin molds? My memory is a little fuzzy.)

Yup, you got it...the October 97 issue of MR, the one I needed for the scratchbuilding steam series.

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

Good. I still don't have any locomotives.

Unfortunately, neither do I! Not steam, anyway.

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

So, now that you have the instructions, how easy/affordable is it to actually put together a locomotive?

I haven't tallied what the cost would be exactly. I seem to recall something in the article that said it would be equivalent to a good kit built engine cost wise, so under $100 is the figure that sticks in my head. However, there are some one time cost for tools involved to get started.

I'm not crazy...oh, wait, nevermind.

I also recall around $100 as the cost you mentioned originally, with the potential selling cost around $1000 (give or take a few hundred, though ideally you would want to aim for a price lower than Van Hobbies). The tools are an investment of sorts, which can pay off pretty quick as I remember the cost of the tools being roughly equivalent to the cost of each locomotive.

Here's the web site: http://www.bookman.ca/

Somewhere on there is the square footage; several thousand as I recall. The size of the railroading section was a little disappointing, though it's still bigger than other places.