The freedom of small layouts

Left: Voie Libre International; Right: Voie Libre
I like how the freedom part is all caps in both headlines.

The Oct / Nov / Dec 2026 issue of Voie Libre International showed up in my mailbox last week. No, my work isn't in it, and no I'm not a shill for it :-) I was struck by the headline: 'Small layouts make you free', or translating the French cover with my rickety French skills, 'Freedom with small networks' ('networks' being the commonplace French usage for what we refer to as 'layouts'). If you're a model railroader, frankly, I think that statement is true, if a bit over the top in the English version.

This fall I've realized it's been almost exactly 5 years since I started the Loonar Module on a lark, which lead to the Centennial Experimental Farm layout, which lead to the Mount Lowe layout. All small, all completed, all fun. I don't know what the next 5 years has in store, but any layouts I do will likely be small. There certainly is freedom in small layouts, and I highly recommend them. I'm glad to see that stated so clearly. And, yes, there are fantastic small layouts and layout ideas in that issue.

Outtakes from the dock

I've been searching through my layout photos, thinking about putting together a little book of pictures I've taken over the years. There's a story in them, and a picture book might help me figure out what it is.

Enter the Growlery: Dead Tree Edition

Post-derecho remains of a pine tree with a 23" diameter trunk as seen in 2026.
The internet tells me this tree could have been up to 115 years old!
That age is sobering.

'Sit down, my dear,' said Mr. Jarndyce. 'This you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.'

'You must be here very seldom, sir,' said I.

'O, you don't know me!' he returned. 'When I am deceived or disappointed in - the wind, and it's Easterly, I take refuge here. The Growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!'

John Jarndyce explains the need for his Growlery in Bleak House to Esther Summerson (the 'said I' in the above); from Chapter VIII, Covering a Multitude of Sins in Charles Dickens' Bleak House.

Top piece of said pine tree that bounced off the roof my vehicle

On the May Victoria Day weekend in 2022 one of the most powerful storms in Canadian history swept through Ontario and Quebec, extending 1,000 km from Windsor in the west all the way to Quebec City in the east.

We were in a cabin in the bush when the storm blew through. We survived alright, but our vehicle didn't: the top 2 or 3m or so of a mature pine tree that was maybe 18 to 24 metres tall snapped off in the fury and bounced off the roof of our vehicle. Luckily only the top-most part of that log hit our vehicle, but that was enough to put a significant V-shaped dent in the roof, wreck the sun-roof, smash the windshield, and crush all the roof mounted electronics. I'll say this for Honda's CRV, it can take a punch as it was still drivable. Total repair bill: $10K. Luckily again, insurance covered it. 

Ignominiously being towed home as seen by me from the back window of the tow truck.
It was drivable, but the windshield was completely shattered and the cops said it would likely blow out at speed.
No, it didn't blow out while being towed, but why risk it? The interior was already covered in glass shards. 

Back in the fall of 2021 I had started to take a serious interest in trees and how to model them. Strangely, experiencing this event, and seeing all the smashed and destroyed trees, deepened my fascination with them. There was something about seeing how all these seemingly solid, eternal things, could all be destroyed in a matter of seconds struck a chord. Yes, yes, I have a couple of chainsaws, I've cut down trees and cleared brush, I've seen logging, but this was different: it was wild, violent, and pitiless.

Well, then spring turned into summer as it usually does :-)

I did a lot of sitting around that summer of 2022 because I had injured my left shoulder and it was taking a long time to heal. On the day in late July when the summer issue of Voie Libre arrived I was sitting under a tree in the backyard so I decided to read the issue as soon as the mailman dropped it off in the afternoon. This line in the editorial got me chuckling: "Issue 110 of Voie Libre is designed to be enjoyed sitting in a shady corner, with a few friends and a glass of cool wine. Just like a proper summer issue should be, packed with ideas for projects, or simply dreaming of projects, in case action is postponed until autumn." 

That's exactly what I was doing: drinking some cool red wine under the shade of a tree and thinking about layout projects now and then. 

And I got to thinking about how I hadn't seen a Canadian themed layout by a Canadian in that magazine even though I'd seen some excellent Canadian inspired ones by non-Canadians. They were a little on the stereotypical side in my view as there was something about them didn't properly say 'Canada' to me. That's when I decided as a bit of a lark to take some photos of the Loonar Module and send them off to the editor. One thing lead to another, and I was very happy to see the Loonar Module appear in the Spring 2023 issue of Voie Libre, and later in the Nov'23 issue of The Interchange, the OVAR's newsletter.

The very first construction photo of the Loonar Module from October 2021.
Positioning the island and track plan on 2' x 2' foam sheets.
At the time I didn't know this was classified as a micro-layout, albeit a large one.

The Loonar Module doesn't completely reflect the entirety of Canada either. No layout can as they are all reflections of how the builder sees and experiences the specifics of their piece of the country and translates that into a layout. The Loonar Module's terrain is based on that found in some of my favourite haunts in Hastings County, Ontario, which are dominated by tall trees, extensive wild forests, rocks, rocks, and more rocks, and lakes. Oh, and loons of course :-) The whole story about a narrow gauge experimental test railway run by the Ontario Department of Lands & Forests is completely fictional, but with lots of inspiration from the real government department. 

Final configuration of the Lost Ocean Line (dimensions in cms).
I must admit this was a favourite which the Way Out Layout has not yet surpassed even though it was meant to.

I consider The Loonar Module my first truly personal expression in layout form. The old Lost Ocean Line, and its descendant, the Way Out Layout, incorporated personal elements too, but they had a lot of outside stuff on them as well that steered the layouts towards being statements of style and whimsy. 

One of the first planning photos of the Centennial Experimental Farm layout from September 2022

Work on the Centennial Experimental Farm layout started in the fall of 2022 as my shoulder started to feel better. The layout is an homage to Ottawa's Central Experimental Farm, a place I would frequently visit on my bicycle, and incorporates many of the features I like about it. It turns out the farm did have a trolley line, so unlike the Loonar Module the rail aspect isn't completely fictional. I also consider this layout a personal statement. The Centennial Experimental Farm appeared in the January 2025 issue of Continental Modeller. 

Early design work on the Havelock Yard layout in July 2023

The Havelock Yard layout came about because early in July 2023 I became obsessed with building some sort of nostalgic tribute to the real Havelock yard that I've visited since the 1970s. The track plan is an inglenook with some display tracks added so I could show off a few models of freight cars I've seen there over the years. The layout is operable, but I haven't finished the scenery. Ok, strictly speaking, I haven't really started on the scenery. There's something too personal about this layout that gets triggered whenever I make a start on scenery that causes me to stop. Maybe one day I'll figure out what that is. So even though this layout is also a personal statement, it has some sort of negative charge associated with it.

After 4 days of part time work I had the infrastructure for the 3 pieces for my entry to
Le Grand Defi finished! A record of sorts for me.

I started my entry for LR Presse's 'Le Grand Defi' in late February 2024. Although it was for a challenge, I instantly had an idea for an entry based on VIA's Sudbury to White River line, complete with RDC. I considered this a personal response to the challenge, and not some stereotyped concoction for contest purposes. I was quite energized as I built this thing and finished in record time for me, completing all three pieces by late April 2024. I still have this extended diorama as I don't have the heart to cannibalize it for parts.

Starting to play around with objects to size the Mt. Lowe trolley.
Track planning came later when the trolley was finished.

I was on some sort of high at the end of April 2024 and immediately began work on the Mount Lowe Layout, which was a layout I've had in mind building since 2013 or so and now I finally had an idea on how to proceed. However, unlike the other personal layouts I didn't start with a track plan, but with building a vehicle inspired by Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley. I needed it to help figure out the curve radii and grades on the layout. 

Ok, this layout isn't set in Ontario, but in a fictionalized version of California's San Gabriel Mountains. All I can say is I've hiked parts of the Mt. Lowe trail twice, have studied the railway for a long time, and have been charmed by it for a number of reasons. So, I'll claim a personal connection and this layout as a personal expression. If the world wasn't in the state it's in right now, I would return to finish hiking and exploring all the sections of the trail I haven't yet seen. The Mt. Lowe layout appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Voie Libre.

Photos from the early planning days on:
Top: Community Garden | Middle: Tintin 2001 | Bottom: Inglenook Lake

Which brings me to today, almost exactly five years after beginning the Loonar Module in September 2021, which started me on the path I'm on now. Right now I have 3 little layouts on the go. I think the Community Garden layout will proceed and get finished. It'll be my first true micro-layout, and not one that pushes the outer size boundaries as have my others. It's both a personal statement on a place I quite like, and has a number of technical and modelling challenges I'm quite interested in working on. The Tintin 2001 layout might be stalled for awhile as I think about how to panel the monolith pit. Inglenook Lake will likely proceed as I think it's going to be a deeply personal layout, possibly with a more serious feeling to it than either the Loonar Module, the Centennial Experimental Farm, or Mount Lowe.

Yet another sketch for an MCM-7 Taronna (aka Toronto) layout.

The 500-lb gorilla lurking in the background is Taronna, my homage to the places and streetcars of Toronto that has yet to take off even though I've built many buildings for it, doodled many sketches, and acquired many streetcars. The Lost Ocean Line had some Toronto pieces incorporated; the ill-fated Alta Vista TC (for Transportation Commission) was a serious attempt at a Toronto layout, but it had so many design problems it was completely unworkable, and most importantly, was boring; and Taronna, the MCM-7 version of Toronto, is still just lines on paper. This layout continues to be parked. I have a Rapido TTC CLRV on pre-order to complete the streetcar fleet for this thing, so when it arrives in the far flung future I hope my thoughts will have settled on a way to proceed with the layout.

I think there are a few reasons why some layouts get finished and others stall out: 

Too much nostalgia is a killer. The Havelock Yard, Alta Vista TC, and even the yet to be started Taronna are soaked in personal nostalgia. Clearly, it doesn't sit well with me. I need to think more about Taronna if I'm going to actually build something that reflects whatever is going on in my brain about this layout.

No room for improvisation. I think at some level I perceived a lack of possibilities for improvisation in the Alta Vista TC and Havelock Yard that helped to kill the first and stall out the second. I explicitly consigned the Lost Ocean Line to the junk yard precisely for such a lack. I feel the improvisational lack creeping into Tintin 2001 too, and it certainly was a factor in stopping work on the N-scale homage layout to E. L. Moore's Elizabeth Valley RR. Well, that one was also stalled by the complicated wiring work involved. I'm not a fan of wiring and electrical work. I sometimes wonder if Mr. Moore had someone wire his layout for him because he noted in his writings a distaste for it, and the EVRR is relatively complicated wiring wise.

Trees. This one sounds strange even to me. It seems like if a layout has plenty of trees, interesting ones, not dull store bought ones, then it has a high chance of not stalling out during construction. Well, no stall outs so far.  As evidence I present the tree dense Loonar Module, the Centennial Experimental Farm, and Mt. Lowe. Look, both the soon to be tree dense Community Garden and Inglenook Lake layouts are on my construction tables while the tree barren Havelock Yard, Tintin 2001, and the EVRR, are off to the side in the workshop. Maybe this is a sign? I'm already thinking of trees and tree placement on Inglenook Lake based on my derecho and post-derecho observations of trees in Hastings County, and I haven't even finalized the track plan yet! 

Story. When it comes to story I think mine have to have one to be successful. Looking back on the story side of things I think I'm sort of a Johnny One Note in this regard. I have this one 'master story' in my head, and I all I do is write additions to it and variations on it. Every successful layout, even including the Lost Ocean Line and the Way Out Layout, are bits of that story. Well, except maybe Mt. Lowe, which is an outlier I need to think about more. Stalled layouts either have no story, don't derive from the 'master story', or are dominated by nostalgia. I'm starting to agree with Johannes Hofer that nostalgia is a deadly disease! 

More sketches for Taronna

I'm still trying to fully understand what that 'master story', that conglomeration of veiled personal statements in fictional form, is all about, but here are my thoughts so far. 

To get the best sense of where my mind is at regarding a ‘master story’ is to read the novellas I wrote and posted in instalments here at this blog. 

The first one was called Light Ray Blues. The inaugural instalment was posted on 6 September 2012 and can be found here. The last instalment was published on 13 August 2013. Most of the story was composed in my head on lunchtime walks away from the office. Strangely, this novella was the most popular series of posts at the blog until I started in on the long running E. L. Moore series.

The second novella was unimaginatively called Light Ray Blues, Series 2, and the first instalment was published on 6 June 2015. It can be found here. The series wrapped up on 30 October 2016 with instalment #20.

The third novella was called Abandonment and kicked off on 27 March 2020 after a long hiatus. This was a short series, and the 10th and final part was posted on 17 July 2022. Yes, over 2 years later! I was losing interest. At the end of the 10th post I include a post-script on abandonment in general and abandoning the series.

I tried to revive the series with a new novella called Tales of The Midnight Hobby Shop. The first instalment appeared on 2 September 2024. This series only ran for 3 instalments, but unlike the others it was left in an unfinished state. I left everything hanging in the 5 October 2024 episode. 

There were a few stand alone, single post stories too. One was written as an ersatz episode of The Twilight Zone where Ed Bryce visits E. L. Moore, another has Frank Madwood confronting three spirits in a Christmas Carol homage, and a third is a transcript from Madwood’s call-in radio show where he discusses the differences between model railroads and layouts with Professor Mary Ellesmere of the University of New Toronto’s Centre for Rail Guided Transportation.

I refer to all four novellas and stories in the series as Streetcar Noir, reflecting the dominance of streetcars in the series, and that they’re written in my attempt at a somewhat tongue-in-cheek hard-boiled noir style.

I wrote a little guide to the characters, places, and technology that appear in Streetcar Noir in the so-called ‘Understory’ that you can find at the bottom of the second instalment to Abandonment. 

I’m thinking the series ran out of steam with Abandonment and Tales of The Midnight Hobby Shop because of the pandemic, and that I was spending more and more time on layout dreaming, layout construction, and making things for those layouts. Maybe the ‘master story’ had formed enough in my mind by then that I could set it aside awhile and pursue it in model form.

Taronna thoughts continue to develop

The world those novellas take place in is a Canada in a parallel universe. Most of action takes place in a city called New Toronto, some of its outskirts, and nearby wilderness areas; however, the stories do move at times to Ottawa and British Columbia.

In this version of Canada electric powered rail guided transportation systems dominate the transportation landscape: electric streetcars, trams, trains, personal railcraft, along with some non-rail automobiles and trucks. There’s something called the Inter-Track system, which is vast network of many rail gauges and weights for all sorts of rail vehicles that runs through all cities, towns, villages, and wilderness areas. Ed Bryce has inherited a little trolley shed on a spur of one chunk of the Inter-Track System that runs through a forest area a few hundred kilometres from New Toronto. Telecommunications technologies aren’t that developed in this alternate world. A rudimentary internet-like system can be accessed through kiosks located near some public telephones.

The setting and tales are highly anachronistic. I mix technologies and styles from various eras according to my own likes and dislikes. There are handheld sources of cold fusion power, advanced electric-powered vehicles, and so on, rubbing shoulders with telephone booths and lunch counters and other accoutrements of our own world and its pre-internet predecessors. I freely take this approach with my layouts too. In my mind lots of eras exist in parallel so I have no problem expressing that. Maybe I believe that all time exists at once and its directedness is an illusion created by our physical being, but I’m probably wrong, but it sure often seems that way.

There aren’t any geopolitics directly discussed in the stories, but New Toronto is so-called because in its universe a big chunk of Toronto was destroyed in a brief continent-wide war and was rebuilt in the aftermath. Hints at what happened appear in some instalments. For example, in the first series Ed Bryce recalls how as part of an energy deal China built a cross-Canada mag-lev system. In the 3rd part of Light Ray Blues, Series 2, Frank Madwood explains how being injured in the war lead to his career in scale modelling, and the founding of his company, Model Investigations.

The characteristics of this long series of stories and the features of the layouts that didn’t stall out seem to be cut from the same cloth. Even the Mt. Lowe layout sort of fits given its highly anachronistic style, with its continuation of the railway into something approximating our era, much like the Loonar Module and Experimental Farm do. Story fragments pop up in construction posts from time-to-time, and upon re-reading some of them, they could easily form the basis of new novella instalments in the world of Streetcar Noir. Here’s a few: one, two, three, four.  On the other hand, the stalled layouts seem to all fall outside the concepts established in Streetcar Noir. Maybe one reason the successful layouts are successful is because they follow a prototype: the world of the ‘master story’, the Streetcar Noir story?

Hmm. This lengthy investigation may point to ways to pull the stalled layouts out of limbo. I’ll let you know. Thanks for hanging in until the end. I had no idea where contemplation of a tree stump would take me :-)

I returned to the scene this year to slice off the top of the stump for a layout base.
My chainsaw proved to be no match for the mighty stump :-(
(Also, the terrain was a bit too challenging for me chain saw wielding-wise.)

Loons on the Loonar Module

Yeap, there are loons on the Loonar Module.

Loading the Beaver

So far this is my favourite photo in this new series of pictures. One of the things I like about micro-layouts, well, about any small layout that isn't too hard to move around, is, well, you can move them around :-) Taking pictures outside in the backyard, on the porch, under lights in the workshop, in the living room being convivial, anywhere, is no problem. Got a scene in mind? No problem. Just set it up and snap away. To me that really adds to the play-value of the thing.

Unloading canoes

I continue to re-photograph the Loonar Module as I proceed with my relentless search for dust :-) I'm also translating the scenes I have in my head of this little northern paradise into photographs.

AI and I resolve our aesthetic differences

Gemini improves a photo of the Loonar Module.

As you know I'm working on cleaning up the dust situation on the Loonar Module. I had hoped we'd have a calm, sunny, and mild day to take it outside and assess it in sunlight. We did get some good weather recently, but still not good enough for me to dare to take the layout out on the back deck. 

So I figured I'd get out the photo lights and have a look at the layout under the 'daylight' LEDs. Below is a photo I took. It needs a little adjustment exposure-wise, but it's getting there.

A low resolution version of the photo I asked Gemini to make as realistic as possible.

Afterwards I thought, I'll ask Gemini to make that photo look as realistic as possible, so I gave it a high resolution version of the picture and it went to work. At one time Gemini seemed to think there were too many trees on the layout so I was curious to see what it would do. The lead photo to this post is what it produced. I thanked it for its work and it had this to say in response:

"You’re very welcome! The way that station wagon and the yellow canoe pop against the new, realistic background really brings the whole "northern getaway" vibe to life.

Since we've upgraded the scenery, would you like me to try adding some subtle atmospheric effects—like a light morning mist clinging to the base of the trees or a slight "golden hour" sunset glow—to see how it changes the mood?"

I said, sure go ahead and this is what it produced:

Gemini's interpretation of the "golden hour" on the Loonar Module.

I thanked it for this one too, and it replied with:

"I'm glad you're enjoying this golden hour scene. The way the sunset hits the pine trees, the wooden cabin, and that classic station wagon—it almost makes you forget it's a miniature and feel like you're standing right there on that grassy overlook in Ontario.

We've focused on the vehicles and the cabin, but would you like me to shift focus to the wildlife? Perhaps we could add a moose by the edge of the woods, or maybe a realistic family of ducks or a loon on a hidden pond at the base of the hill?"

I didn't proceed with its suggestions.

Ok, to back up a bit. I think the problem I'm having with my Loonar Module trees is that these were my first attempts at tree making, and on them I didn't use green and brown spray paint on the Poly Fiber as I've done with more recent attempts. As well, I used too little static grass making the foliage a bit too wispy. Both these problems added up to weak colour, as if dust was filtering the hues. I may make some colour corrections.

I must say though Gemini did an excellent job of correcting the scene, and its comments on the images it produced were downright spooky. I don't have problems with the aesthetic choices it made in the images it produced, although I can imagine further variations to bring them inline with my mental image of the layout. I know there's lots of discussion about AI slop these days, and I've seen plenty, but these images aren't slop. 

I can certainly see me using Gemini for further investigation into Loonar Module imagery. Should I say 'collaboration'? I don't know, but to me these images raise lots of interesting questions to explore.

AI and I have aesthetic differences

Picture of the modification to the Loonar Module micro-layout created by Gemini

Recently Vince and I had a discussion about an interesting question he posed to Gemini: can you critique the layout in this photo (or some similar phrasing)? The layout and photo being referred to is this one, the Loonar Module:

The real Loonar Module awaiting dusting.

I'm told Gemini felt there were too many trees, and when asked to create a picture of a revised layout produced the one shown in the lead photo to this post. Its suggestion stripped away the core design I had in mind for this layout and reduced it to something that reminded me of what our environment looked like here after the Victoria Day 2022 derecho swept across Ontario.

I didn't act on Gemini's suggestion and have no intention to. 
The Loonar Module awaits good weather so I can assess its dustiness outside in sunlight.

I mention this AI encounter because I think it highlights something important with the LLM AI variants that are freely available to consumers like me: they're only as good as their training, and they can't get out into the world to see and reflect on things as we can. I know these are obvious points that no doubt many others have noted, but for obvious reasons this example cuts close to my heart.

The 'prototype' of the Loonar Module landforms and scenery.

The Loonar Module had two main aims: to allow me to build a diorama of an area of the province I love, and allow me space to practice making trees based on species found here. 

Secondarily, the layout allowed me to explore some ideas in a somewhat humorous manner I'd been kicking around in my head about highly fictional Ontario narrow gauge railways. I tried to capture some early thoughts in a couple of episodes of the Streetcar Noir novella series back in 2015: Gone to the country and If a phone rings in the forest.

Same 'prototype', different view.

The micro-layout aspect came later. I wasn't tuned into micro-layouts when I started work on the project, and only realized when it was done that it classified as one because it was built on a stack of pre-cut foam slabs I purchased that happened to measure 2' x 2'. It was a completely accidental entry into the field.

'Prototype' of the little offshore island Gemini stripped the trees from.

Longtime readers may remember The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms series I ran here from 2019 to 2024. Although the entries were presented in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, the principles and terms presented were dead serious. 

The dictionary has a few entries dealing with how to capture the spirit and atmosphere of a location as part of a model railway's design work. The three I use often, and used on the Loonar Module, are: Full Observation, Three Ws, and Start with Geography. Those entries encapsulate my views on getting out and observing things, something AIs can't do.

'Prototype' loons: mom, dad, and junior.

AIs don't approach design in the way those dictionary entries recommend. It seems they look for patterns in example model railways they're trained on. Trees are sparse on many layouts, maybe the majority, so I'd guess and say if sparse is the dominant training pattern, then sparse is what gets recommended. 

In my opinion tree density is already far sparser than the 'prototype', even with 23 trees.

After the layout was built I discovered that by insisting on trees that were scaled to match their real life counterparts height-wise, they act as effective view blockers so that the entire layout can't be observed in a single glance. Basically the tall trees allowed the creation of four distinct scenes. This lesson regarding the use of height as a way to create scenes is one I've continued to use, and it seems an important way to make micros seem bigger.

A corner of the 'prototype' community garden.

Trees also figured prominently on the Centennial Experimental Farm layout, and will on the Community Garden micro. So, with the Loonar Module they form something of a trilogy, or maybe, strictly speaking, a tree-logy :-) I hope my AI friends are taking note.

Dust never sleeps

The winter blahs have got a hold of me, so progress on projects has been slow to nonexistent. I did though do some cleaning on the Loonar Module. I used some damp tissues to dab dust off tree boughs, cleaned gunk off the track, mopped up dust from the water, repaired a ding in the fascia, repoured a little gloss medium 'water', and painted the previously unpainted custom stand I built for the layout.

When I stood back and had a look I realized I'm going to have to have a hard look at it either in sunlight or under my photo lights because the lighting in my workshop isn't good enough to assess the layout's colours and remaining dustiness. I'll have to think about how to proceed.

After the dusting came the running. I took the loco and a couple cars out for some loops. After a little oiling and wheel cleaning all ran well.

Dusty Trees

Over the weekend a friend got in touch and asked if I was going to the Ontario Narrow Gauge Show in May, and if so, would I consider bringing the Loonar Module? It's around a 500 km and 5 hour or so drive from here, so it's a long trip, but that aside, the Loonar Module is looking pretty dusty these days, especially the central tall pines and lake. I decided to take it down to the workshop to try and clean it up and revive it over the next few days to see if it can be made presentable. As well, I'm not sure how it will stand up to a long trip. 

Ok, first things first, dust removal and 'sprucing' up, logistics later. Well, while I'm at work, I'll leave you with the Dusty you're likely thinking about, Dusty Springfield.

Design notes on bases for dioramas and micro-layouts

Base for Moon Mail Madness diorama after Cell-U-Clay had hardened.

I thought I’d spend a little time writing down my thoughts on how bases for dioramas and micro-layouts should be designed; well, maybe I should back off a bit and say these notes are about how I like to design bases. I think about this topic from time-to-time and it popped into my mind again after participating in the recent scale model show held here so I figured maybe this was a good time to put some notes together. I don’t claim any originality or universality here. No doubt many modellers have gone down this road too and touched on many of the same ideas. I can’t say that these notes apply to all situations; your mileage may vary :-)

I used the models to sketch on a big sheet of paper how each would be positioned on the base.

Ok, let’s move on to the first topic. These notes aren’t in any particular order, just what pops into my head as I write.

The arrangement went through several iterations; this one is close to the final

Inspiration: MacRae, Smith, Bennett, Adams, + ...

To me a diorama isn’t just a few objects or figures set on a base to show off a model in a more favourable light as implied by the show’s flyer, which noted that for their purposes we’re looking at a diorama when the following condition is met: “As soon as ANY [JDL: All caps theirs] objects are added to the bases other than the model, it will be classed as a “diorama””. To me a diorama, in the context of scale model work, isn’t simply a collection of objects, but is a model display that tells a story. The story is the primary feature and the models support the telling. A few objects or figures on a base accompanying a model isn’t a diorama, it’s simply a way of displaying a model to best advantage.

From time-to-time eye level views were assessed as the arrangement was iterated.

I’m much inspired by the dioramas of Bruce MacRae, especially his Wine Tasters diorama, as well as the scenes constructed by Michael Paul Smith, Amy Bennett, and Kim Adams. 

Now the work of Smith and Bennett aren’t dioramas in the sense that scale modellers use. Smith created what could be considered temporary scenes for purposes of photographing them, and the temporary scenes Bennett builds are for creating paintings from. However, the key here is they both use models to create scenes that tell stories. 

The objects Kim Adams makes are closer to that of classic model making diorama-ists, but the content of his work is very different. His stories are often ones of exploration into alternative possibilities of our physical world, not just highly detailed reflections of it.

But, the connecting thread running through the work of all four artists is that the centre of interest in their dioramas isn’t one or two particularly well detailed models, but stories. 

Scraps of foam sheet to be used to make the base.

In the model railroading world, E. L. Moore is my main influence. Not everything he built centred on a story, but a lot did. Over the last few years I've been impressed by the layouts shown in the French magazine Voie Libre. Ok, yes, this has an air of shameless self-promotion since a few photos of the Loonar Module appeared there in 2023 in a micro-layout feature, but in my defence I submitted photos there for a couple of reasons. I was impressed by the small layouts they'd written about over the previous 3 or 4 years, and I had never seen a layout set in a Canadian scene by an actual Canadian in their pages! I wanted to fix that injustice :-) The rest is history :-)

I quite enjoy all the layouts Voie Libre has featured, but I especially like the work of Bernard Junk and Detlev Horn, notably their layout called The Island.

Continental Modeller is also a good place to see innovative layouts. And, yes, yes, more shameless self-promotion, the Centennial Experimental Farm layout appeared in its pages this year. 

All I'm saying is that there's a lot of interesting work going on in the wide world of model railroad layouts

Tracing template was cut out after finalizing the arrangement.

Shape: Base Shape Helps Story

The footprints of many dioramas and small layouts are simple geometric shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, and ovals. This is quite understandable as these are readily obtainable in the form of pieces of wood, picture frames, display plaques, and so on. I’ve come to think though that the footprint should help tell the diorama’s story.

Sometimes foam sheets were glued together to make suitably sized pieces

I didn’t really understand this when I built the Loonar Module. I used 2’ x 2’ by 1” thick insulating foam sheets for the base because they were easy to buy at the local home renovation store. But, I wound up building a round island on a square lake! It turned out ok, but if there’s a next time the base’s footprint will reflect the story since water isn’t square :-)

Later, when I was building the Centennial Experimental Farm layout I could have just gone ahead with a rectangular footprint for the base, but I thought it more appropriate for the base to be rectangular at the Carling road end since the road was all straight edges, and rounded at the streetcar return loop at the farm end. There it matched the graceful loop of the track, and didn’t present dead corners to be filled in as it would if this end was also square. So, curved lines at the natural end, and straight edges at the urban end.

A layer ready for cutting out with a hand saw and knife.

The Mt. Lowe layout is where I’ve really started to apply the ’base shape helps story’ principle. Mt. Lowe had several scenes that I wanted to capture, but they had to be somewhat separated from each other. The trefoil seemed to help realize that desire with its three prominent lobes, each providing a separate scenic area. Thinking about the trefoil’s scenic potential a bit more I realized its footprint actually allows for 7 scenes: the 3 lobes, the 3 concavities connecting the lobes, and the aerial view, which in this case is a mountain top observatory.

Lots of scraps and foam dust after cutting out the pieces.

With the Moon Mail Madness diorama I took the principle further. As you can see in this post’s photos I designed the base’s shape as I used the models to sketch out the story; both developed at the same time. And what is the story? It’s a slice of life in the lunar postal service: two lunar postal workers meet at a crossroads and one takes a photo of the other as he begins to remove letters from a mailbox :-) I thought the base’s footprint should match the shape of the road intersection to emphasize the crossing. Also, why make the base square or rectangular and have to deal with dead space that needs filling? The only external limit on the footprint was the show’s specified requirement that all dioramas had to fit in a 2’ x 2’ area, not be a 2’ x 2’ area, which was no problem fulfilling.  

White glue holds the stack together. A rasp and sanding blocks used to form the final shape.

Presence: A Subtle Call to Look

Over the years I’ve come to like thick bases for dioramas and small layouts. 

A lot of dioramas and small layouts I’ve seen present the viewer with a decent top side model and scene set on a thin, platter-like base. Sort of like a meal that has been put on a dinner plate. Some might say, well it’s the modelling that’s of interest and not what it’s sitting on, much like it’s the meal that’s important and not the plate below.

An anti-slip mat was cut and glued to the bottom of the base.

To me though a diorama or layout is a complete, integrated object; a type of three-dimensional sculpture. A diorama doesn’t consist of a good part (the model work) that is to be enjoyed and an irrelevant support part (the base) that is to be ignored. The base’s footprint helps to tell the story, and its height helps to command you to look at that story by establishing the diorama or layout’s physical presence amongst all other objects that vie for a viewer’s attention.

This is another idea that at first I didn’t fully appreciate. The Loonar Module’s base is 3 foam sheets thick because I wanted it to be quite rigid and strong. Mission accomplished. However, looking at the result over weeks and months I felt the thick base gave the layout a solid look that I quite liked. It seemed like the island actually was rooted in something, not just sitting on something.

Anti-slip mat trimmed to fit the bottom of the base.

On the Centennial Experimental Farm I deliberately made the base height about the same as what I thought the tallest tree would be. It seemed odd to me to have big, tall trees (completely to scale regarding height and canopy volume) sticking out of a base no thicker than a pizza box. It didn’t seem balanced. It didn’t seem substantial.

However, like the Loonar Module’s base, I painted it black because I didn’t want the base to draw attention to itself. Its job was simply to say “here’s a story” and bring it to a viewer’s attention, not be the story. The base is to be the strong silent type component in this object we call a diorama: it provides structural support, it’s footprint provides narrative support, it’s height makes a call for attention and visually balances the models, but it tries to do all this in a subtle manner, not calling unnecessary attention to itself. 

The mailbox rise is glued to the base. Note commercial vac-formed crater to the right.

Moon Mail Madness violates the subtly principle a little with the inclusion of the postcard. I thought it would help the overall story, and it tries to be subtle while doing so. Sometimes on layouts that are structured like framed paintings instead of sculptural objects you’ll see a lot of labels, stickers, photos, warnings, awards, and other ephemera attached to the surround. That’s all too loud and distracting for me. The layout needs to speak for itself. Likewise, dioramas need to speak for themselves. They shouldn’t need any supporting documentation or ephemera hanging around trying to divert attention.

Crater glued on. White glue spread on foam prior to applying Cell-U-Clay.

Materials: Sheet Foam

I use foam sheets for my bases because they are lightweight, strong when laminated, easy to cut and shape, and low cost. I learned a hard lesson when I built the portable Lost Ocean Line layout from wood. It became too heavy to be very portable by me alone. Other materials can certainly be used. Foam sheets aren’t some magic one-size-fits-all solution, but I’d say put the wood back in the rack if it isn’t completely necessary. If you’re using wood for decorative reasons, that’s a different story.

Spare Moonscope wheel was used to roll in tracks.

On the Loonar Module I sided the base with sheet styrene to give it a smooth finish. I’ve subsequently learned that isn’t completely necessary. Smoothing the foam sides and then painting them with an artist’s quality acrylic will produce a decent finished surface. Although foam sides may seem a bit rough and soft after shaping and smoothing, the acrylic paint acts as a binder to solidify the surface as well as provide colour. Think of the paint job as applying a surface binder that just so happens to have a colour, which is black in my case. 

After 2 weeks of curing, cheap acrylic paints were used to colour the surface

Eye Level: An unresolved problem

I’ve always thought that the conventional way scale models (plastic models, train layouts, doll houses, every category really) are shown and displayed is odd. I think the best way to view them is at eye level because, usually, that’s how we encounter their real life counterparts. Yet, models are usually displayed so that the most common viewing angle is from above. I understand the practical reasons for this, but it doesn’t do justice to the models and the work of their makers. By setting out models on tables of conventional height only small children get the best views :-) 

Maybe conventional tables augmented with some sort of leg extensions would do the trick for model shows. Combined with showing dioramas or layouts with thick bases, this might almost solve the eye level viewing problem. Or maybe not. If you’re a long time reader here I’ve tried some experiments to fix this issue over the years, but haven’t been satisfied yet with the results. 

Ready for adding the models.

These aren't likely my final thoughts on the subject. They simply capture a few aspects of my current thinking. 

Oh, and before I run off for coffee, Sheperd Paine's book How to build Dioramas is always good to consult. Maybe I'll dive in again while coffee's brewing.

Awaiting the show.