Shelf Layout
As small as it was, this minimalist layout was nevertheless rich in detail, right down to mailboxes for the houses. Märklin's solid cast resin American structures provided the visual starting point; they were all heavily modified to give them fresh character and reduce their solid-block feel.
The freight depot (1), originally a feed mill, got a corrugated metal roof over the loading ramp and a big sign, "Wherehouse." A string of microbulbs under the roof and several Preiser figures on the ramp gave this building life. Next door, the passenger station (2) was illuminated by separating the structure's two parts and milling out slots for bulbs in the underside of the roof with a Dremel tool. The reassembled structure sat on a piece of scribed sheet styrene to give it a proper platform.
The factory (3) and the row of stores (5) braced a street that ended in a special surface mirror assembly (4) designed to create the illusion that the street continued though another intersection. The factory interior was partially carved out using a circular saw so that the main freight doors could be left open. To illuminate all of the many windows in the row of stores, I painted the entire structure except for the windows with a dense coat of flat black, then applied final colors over the black. Then I drilled out a series of holes in the middle of the casting block and installed bright lights, which shone through the semi-translucent white casting material, giving all of the windows a soft glow. The two houses (6) were instead drilled and milled to physically open up some of the windows, which were glazed and illuminated.
The track leading to "Itzhall Mine" (7) followed an incline so that the siding was elevated above the mainline. The lower half of this incline, as well as the back stretch of the loop, were hidden from view behind a scenery barrier along the green dotted line (8). A sky mural cut from a poster was placed on the wall behind the layout. When you stood with your head within the recess in the middle, you were rewarded with a nearly 270-degree panoramic view, which was quite enveloping for such a small layout.
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