The Mojave Module

Back in 2018 while driving through California’s Mojave National Preserve, my partner and I spotted a freight train in the distance. As it crawled towards us we stopped to take it all in—its grumbling engines breaking the silence and shaking the sand under our feet.

Years later in the midst of the COVID pandemic I decided I wanted to relive that memory, so I built it in miniature at 1:160 scale.

The size of the module is 4ft x 1.5ft. I used an iPhone to photograph it, as the small sensor and lenses are easily placed close to scale-human height into the scene. For a realistic scale depth of field, each final image is a composite of ~7-10 stills, each shot at a different focal distance.

After researching on Google Maps, I determined the exact location of the real-life encounter to have been right next to the ghost town of Cima. Everything from the track configuration to the highway color to the type of vegetation was determined by studying imagery from this location.

As the culmination of the project, the Mojave Module received a feature Model Railroader Magazine, the hobby’s leading publication for over 80 years.