Calls may be continuing for a reinstated passenger railway service to the Adelaide Hills, but a world away from public transport lobbying, Peter Michalak is building his own version in a backyard shed.
Harking back to the late 1980s and early 90s, Mr Michalak's HO scale (1:87) Hills Line railway layout represents the 315-kilometre stretch between Adelaide and Serviceton, just over the Victorian border.
Featuring the Murray Mallee town of Pinnaroo, and Tailem Bend railway station with buildings modelled to scale, its centrepiece is Bridgewater railway station in the Adelaide Hills, complete with the old mill and tree-covered hillside.
"Bridgewater, in this reality, still has passenger train services to it," Mr Michalak said.
"I grew up catching SteamRanger [heritage] trains to Bridgewater as a kid in the school holidays, so I had a lot of memories of going up there, and I had to create it."
Bridgewater was the first railway station he created, and was designed to be portable and taken on exhibit.
The layout, which Mr Michalak started in 2013, has since grown too big and too complicated to be exhibited.
It now gives a "selectively compressed" version of the much longer railway, and includes Mount Lofty Railway Station, while his brother, Nick, is currently building Blackwood Railway Station.
