As much as I love highly detailed scenery and beautiful mountainous regions, buildings, cars and people on model railway layouts, I often think it takes away from the heart of model railroading, which are the trains.

I have long since played around with the idea of doing a layout as abstract as possible, still being able to identify basic scenery, but with no grass, people, roads, or fine scenery. It was to be as course as possible, but still represent a model layout.

I have therefore collected a Marklin Z set, with two locomotives and the full SETT track layouts: E+S+T1+T2+T3, and an additional controller to switch track portions on and off.



I started by modeling the tracks in AutoCAD, and getting the basic layout and sizing right. The idea is to have it underneath the glass of the coffee table, and leave the rest usable.

I will then laser cut plywood layers to build up the contours of the mountains and sea, and spray everything white, except the sea, which is blue. Buildings are black, and boats red and green. The idea is that it looks as minimalistic and abstract as possible. The mountain is also a single piece which can be lifted up, as can the buildings, which leaves the track flat and exposed, easy to clean. There is a two layer gap underneath the main track layer, which allows for all cabling to run through. The controllers are all on the bottom layer, which will feed directly underneath the track bed and mountain.

I would like to hear if anyone else has tried this before. I suspect cleaning will be much easier, and not having grass and dust generating scenery a breeze to clean.

Very nice and very interesting.

Keep up the good work

Per.

This is certainly an interesting idea-keen to see how it turns out!!