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I like Jake McKee. He's a great guy. But this book is for those who are "getting started" ... I bet almost no one that is a regular reader of Eurobricks fits that description. Further, as other posters say, it's dated. Unless you're a completist who has to have every LEGO book published I wouldn't recommend paying much over face value for it. On the other hand, a complete set of back issues of Railbricks is free (in electronic form) and will have more train ideas in it, at all levels, not just at the beginner level, than this book does. The reverse challenges, in particular, are superb. But then I'm biased since I'm on the editorial board :)

Talk to Abner. I was present in Conan's basement one night, when he opened one (as in, tore the shrink wrap off a sealed package) and showed it to us... it was one that he had bought I think from eBay. None of us could believe he'd actually open it till he did.

You should find these in the standard parts library under "tables", I believe. They even have woodgrain and everything. :) The BrickWiki article is coming along. It can use more work if folk are interested. http://brickwiki.org/wiki/BlueBrick I am using BB to do the MTW layout for Brickworld 2010 as well. One thing I would like to see would be the possibility of better table alignment. We are using the 30x72 banquet tables supplied by the convention/hotel. They always snap to the grid at the upper left. I would love a way to say "use the lower right for your snap to for this positioning" because we are going to set them up with gaps. Even without gaps they don't position quite right as 2 inches (the overage) isn't an exact multiple of any stud dimension (although 1/2 stud is close enough I guess)

BNSF are friendly to railfans and apparently quite willing to work with LEGO, as this is their third joint project. The new loco is in their modern colors, dark green and orange with yellow striping. The 10020 loco is in the passenger colors of their predecessor line ATSF (BNSF is a merger road from Burlington Northern (BN) and Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF)) Union Pacific have a reputation among other railroaders as the most arrogant railway in the US. That reputation extends to model railroaders as well, as they are rumored to have sued model companies for using their logo (within their rights) after wanting exorbitant license fees, fees that would break a mom and pop operation (also within their rights). Their color scheme is yellow with red stripe and gray trim, not "all yellow" So it may be that LEGO either chose not to work with UP (I could tell a story here about a conversation Brad and I had about who was easy to work with and who wasn't, well before the 10020 came out, but I won't... who would believe me?), or UP blew LEGO off, or wanted exorbitant fees. Despite that, UP is the most popular color scheme for my MTW-2001 loco. It IS a sharp scheme. Hope that helps. I admit bias. BNSF is a customer of my employer while UP is not.