Model trains: An amazing American layout

This layout is pretty cool for its sheer complexity, and should make almost any rail fan drool. It's based at Bryson City, North Carolina, a place that's better known for being deep in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Big layouts are terrific, but one of the most satisfying layouts I was involved in measured less than an armstretch wide. It represented a sidings, with buildings, intricate detail and appropriate shunting locomotives – small but perfectly formed as they say.

So if you don't have room for a mega-project, do a mini one instead, and you'll still have a ball.

Back to Bryson City, if you visit, make sure you travel on the full-size tourist Great Smoky Mountains Railroad that operates from there.