An Australian railway enthusiast spent 13 years building a mini version of a 315-kilometre route

The Adelaide-to-Bridgewater passenger service ended in 1987. In Peter Michalak’s backyard shed, the train still makes the journey. It passes the station, the old mill and a tree-covered hillside, moving through a miniature version of South Australia where some journeys never stopped.For 13 years, Michalak has been building the Hills Line, an HO-scale, i.e. 1:87, railway recreating the 315-kilometre corridor between Adelaide and Serviceton, just across the Victorian border. About 50 metres of mainline track loops through three levels, passing stations, freight yards and hills.Bridgewater is the heart of the project. Passenger trains once carried people from Adelaide into the Adelaide Hills, but services beyond Belair were withdrawn in 1987. Patronage had fallen, particularly after the South Eastern Freeway offered a faster route into the city. Today, passenger trains terminate at Belair. In Michalak’s version of events, the service to Bridgewater never disappeared.“I grew up catching SteamRanger trains to Bridgewater as a kid in the school holidays,” he told the ABC. “I had a lot of memories of going up there, and I had to create it.” Bridgewater was the first station he built, originally as a portable model for exhibitions. It has since become the centrepiece of a much larger railway. “Bridgewater, in this reality, still has passenger train services to it,” he said.The Adelaide-to-Melbourne route was once part…