The Brown Book of Brass Locomotives

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Summary: The best available resource on American HO Scale brass
Review: The purpose of this book is to provide a catalog of all HOScale brassmodel locomotives imported into the United States through about 1992. The second purpose is to provide technical and price information to perspective buyers or evaluators of "preowned" brass. Mr. Glaab does an excellent job with the first function. The book is divided into locomotive types (steam, rod, geeared, narrow-gauge, diesels, gas-electrics and electrics). Within each catagory the models are broken down by railroad (AT&SF, B&O) and then by (wheel)class. I found very few models which were not listed in this book, and they were rare examples, handbuilt in Japan in the early days of brass modeling (1950s). Photographs are supplied of some of the models, drawn from Glaab's own private collection or those of his collector colleagues. The B&W photographic quality varies from fair to good. The book lists many thousands of models and provides an excellent overview of the productivity of this little known industry. It deals only with the locomotive models of Canada and the United States. It is unfortunate that it could not have been extended to the topic of brass rolling stock as well, but this would have almost doubled the size of the volume. Concerning the commentary on individual models. It is obvious the Mr. Glaab could not see or evaluate every single one of the thousands of models produced by some 40 importers since the early 1950s. However, he makes a valiant effort. Comments are grouped into 1,954 notes appendixed to the book. Although this establishes a somewhat awkward procedure for acquiring the necessary information, and although the notes are extremely brief and necessarily incomplete, they do provide useful information.Concerning the pricing of the models, one must use the information with considerable care. Mr. Glaab runs a large model train store (Peach Creek Shops) and has considerable information on the prices of models. However, the price structure has changed significantly since this book was written, particularly for many of the rarer handbuilt models of the 1950s. Theoretically, the prices were established on the basis of two or more known sales in the years prior to publication (he contacted me for some of this information). However, I note considerable disparities in the prices of many of the rarer models from pricing information known to me. For example, a rare model he listed at $8,000 recently sold at auction for $14,000+. Some even rarer models are markedly undervalued. With these considerations in mind, one might use this book as a beginning point (only) for the evaluation of a collection of model trains. All in all, this book is not only an excellent organizational effort, but represents the very best source available on the subject. Some useful appendixes include lists of importers, builders, the Whyte Wheel Classification for steam locomotives (Atlantic 4-4-2, etc.), and a useful bibliography. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of American brass models.