Used to help restore Gilbert AF trains to running condition

I liked the book for the broad range of "How to's" and fixes that were covered.

This book review was written for the South Jersey S Gaugers newsletter "The Waybill".

Thomas Barker, known for his published books for repairing American Flyer products, has just released a collection of his "Roundhouse" repair articles that appeared in the S-Gaugian magazine between May, 1973 through January, 1987 - a total of 71 articles.

I had clipped many of the magazine articles to save for later reference, but I didn't get all of them and the articles had a lot of advertisements in them. Now, I have all of the articles in one place in a nice bound soft-cover book of 211 pages. It stacks neatly alongside Bob's other repair books on my shelf.

The important things first. The articles are not photocopies, they are newly typeset in a readable font making the text clear and easy to read.

The book includes a table-of-contents that lists the title of each article, giving you a good idea of the topic covered in the article. But since Tom usually covered more than one subject per article, you'll find the index at the back of the book invaluable for finding relevant information for your repairs. For instance, if you want to find tips on repairing the smoke unit on your steam engine, article #3 (Sept, 1973) is titled "Smoke and Choo-Choo", a pretty logical starting point. But if you check in the index for "Smoke", you'll find about 10 other articles that also touch on smoke unit troubleshooting. Add other search topics like "Nichrome Wire" and you'll find even more tips.

Tom's writing style is easy to read - he describes things well and gives clear directions on how to make the repairs. Tom also gives tips on how to make custom repair "˜tools' using common items that don't cost an arm and a leg, like modifying inexpensive automotive battery cable pullers to pull the engine wheels off their axles.

All of the diagrams are also clear, obviously reprinted from the original images and not photocopied from the magazines. A lot of the diagrams are hand-drawn, done in the day before CAD programs were the rage. That's not saying they are hard to understand, they're just not as sophisticated as today's efforts.

In the articles, you'll also find some helpful tips that are gems - how to make simple castings of things like mailbags using modeling clay and casting plastic. Other tips are a bit more "out there", such as using 45 caliber bullets and wooden dowels to make self-righting milk cans. That obviously was in the days when you could still afford to buy ammunition!

One other comment, Tom was good in supplying sources for tools and materials in his articles, and many of those sources are no longer around today. The book references have all been updated with notes on alternate sources now available, or at least a description of what to look for. Some repair items are considered unsafe or toxic today - and appropriate cautions and alternate suggestions are noted.

American Flyer S-Gauge has been around since 1946, and the technology of the engines themselves haven't changed, so none of the articles are "out-of-date". Some replacement parts may be harder to find, but the techniques are still sound. One caveat, you won't find much help in this book for S-Helper, American Models, or Lionel products - it's strictly meant for old-timers like me wanting to keep original Flyer "˜Flying' on the tracks!

This is a great collection of technical articles originally written for S Gaugian Magazine. Invaluable help to anyone trying to run or repair American Flyer Trains.

Great book.