Most end tables that you might find in a home are relatively static objects. However, [Peter Waldraff] of Tiny World Studios likes to build furniture that’s a little more interesting. Thus came about this beautiful piece with a real working railway built right in.
The end table was built from scratch, with [Peter] going through all the woodworking steps required to assemble the piece. The three-legged wooden table is topped with a tiny N-scale model railway layout, and you get to see it put together including the rocks, the grass, and a beautiful epoxy river complete with a bridge. The railway runs a Kato Pocket Line trolley, but the really neat thing is how it’s powered.
[Peter] shows us how a small gearmotor generator was paired with a bridge rectifier and a buck converter to fill up a super capacitor that runs the train and lights up the tree on the table. Just 25 seconds of cranking will run the train anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes depending on if the tree is lit as well. To top it all off, there’s even a perfect coaster spot for [Peter]’s beverage of choice.
It’s a beautiful kinetic sculpture and a really fun way to build a small model railway that fits perfectly in the home. We’ve featured some other great model railway builds before, too.
What a horrible scale difference between the tree, the train, the bridges and the river.
Otherwise a nice project, i like the supercap solution.
It’s whimsical, fairytale, not supposed to be true to scale. Also the tree is perfectly to scale, trees come in all sizes.🙄
How to you clean it?
I’ve become more and more aware over time how some things can be really neat to look at but a massive pain to properly clean when the dust settles and the lint catches on all the little edges.
It’s taken the wind out of my sails a bit with some of these types of things.
Yeah, it’s a really fun idea, but either a big glass lid or just insetting the whole thing down into a shadowbox would make it a lot more practical, and keep you from having to glue that tree back in place once a month when you bump it.
I want a desk-drawer train like Mr. Drysdale!