With his early career as a footplate man, Bob Essery brings his own personal experience to judge how effectively most model railway layouts are operated and provides readers with this in-depth and instructive volume on train shunting and marshalling. As a firm believer in "realism in miniature," he knows that over the past twenty years there has been a phenomenal increase in the physical standards of layouts built and exhibited. What is still lacking, however, is the knowledge of how the railways actually operated. Since the publication of Railway Operation for the Modeller in 2003, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of replicating correct operating procedure and this is the fourth volume designed to build upon the success of that original book. This volume is designed to provide the modeler with a comprehensive guide to working practices and includes descriptive text and two hundred mono and color illustrations.