Trains, cars, streets, backgrounds, houses, lights, sounds … We do our best to model our little slice of the Real World as realistically as possible, presenting a complete slice of miniature life. However, what happens when nighttime descends? CLICK! Someone hits the light switch, and it’s night…. not exactly prototypical.

Visitors to Railz Miniworld in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) or any professional layout have seen a far better solution in action. As dusk descends on the layout, the sounds begin to change, the horizon turns red, and lanterns and house lights go on one by one. Even miniature fluorescent streetlights turn on one by one in sequence. It is a slow and smooth transition from day to night. The visitor experiences a more prototypical 24 hour day, in 24 minutes.

As designer of the Railz Miniworld installation, I received many requests for information for an installation for a “typical” small model railway room. The challenge in answering these requests is to scale the Railz Miniworld examples and solutions down to a level which is both technically and financially within the reach of the average modeler or club.

Download theTheater_in_the_attic_v1.0_ENG, or download theTheater_op_zolder_v1.0 here.

[[please be aware that the described concepts are from 2011. Today one should re-evaluate the choices made in the document]]

I’m curious about your reactions, please  let me know  what you think!