Iain Rice is a retired firefighter who earns his living designing, custom building, lecturing, and writing about model railroads both in the U.S. and in Europe. His byline has appeared on 20 modeling book titles and more than 350 features for UK, U.S., and European magazines–including regular contributions to Model Railroader and Model Railroad Planning. He was recently appointed a contributing editor to the Layout Design Special interest Group’s authoritative Layout Design Journal. A small-layout man from inclination as much as as necessity, Iain currently has four compact fine scale model railroads of his own, all in shelf format: Two British-prototype in 4mm/1ft scale, a Dutch "lokaalspoor," and a Maine Central branchline terminal in HO. All these models are exhibited regularly at UK and European train shows and meets.