A layout has the advantage of viewing from above as well as at 'ground level'. This shed has a story from above and a story inside. Of course, it has stories all around it. Think of how many individual pieces are needed to create a scene like this. It looks like hundreds to me.
The bottom building was created by Brian Nolan and is a machine shop. The many thousands of parts all relate to the building's purpose: can you imagine the work effort to assemble and create all the machine-related parts inside?
Gulliver often comes to mind when I look at model layouts, in particular, Gulliver's experience with the Lilliputians. Gulliver's Travels was written by Jonathan Swift and published in 1726. The name Gulliver was first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, in the form of Golafre - a derivation of Old French for glutton. The source for this is the Internet Surname Database.
In the novel, the name is believed to be a portmanteau of the words Gullible and Traveler.
These are pictures from the Narrow Gauge Convention in Kansas City a few years ago. We visited a few layouts, so these aren't all the same railroad. What a surprise when I looked at the last picture and saw the actual size of the building. It seems that bigger models are just as impressive as small ones. It must be some universal Gulliver in us that so admires this work.
