A ”greater” HO-scale diorama on a small balcony - Episode I

 Living in an apartment with little space available for hobbies, I began building a foldable HO-scale model railway diorama a few years ago.
The diorama was designed as a box that could be closed and stored in a narrow space, and it utilized old "Piko" brand model trains.

 Dissatisfied with the quality of the old GDR-era Piko trains, I switched to the old "capitalist" Märklin trains. 

 You can see the result in the photo below: 

 Although the idea wasn't exactly bad, the box was difficult to maneuver, and the concept did not allow for vertical expansion.

 So, I decided to make the most of the limited space on a very small balcony for a new diorama. 

 This time, the diorama features a "subject" inspired by the concept of the Orient Express train.

   The general idea is as follows: the train—featuring Orient Express carriages—departs from a German station, crosses a bridge, and passes a nudist garden; it then travels through a depot where archaeological research is underway before reaching a monastery (where monks tap a barrel of abbey beer in honor of the travelers). Next comes an impressive double-track viaduct, a tunnel, and a wooden bridge connecting to the final section—set in the desert—where passengers can pose for photos with ancient ruins, sheikhs, camels, and so on.

Work (far from complete) began with the depot, the nudist garden, and the archaeological site, where a Christian basilica with a crypt is being unearthed—a structure whose dimensions replicate, to scale, those of the basilica at Niculițel (Romania).

 

  We’ll be back in the next episode with the work on the German station.