Smilestones - Miniaturwelt am Rheinfall

The model railway layout at The Swiss Museum of transportation was impressive, but the layout we was going to visit next in Switzerland was even more impressive. You might say the Smiletones is the Swiss version of the German MiWuLA in Hamburg. The not so typical model railway name Smilestones derives from 'Swiss Milestones' as every stage of this huge H0 layout is a milestone. Smiletones Miniaturwelt am Rheinfall is the largest indoor miniature world in Switzerland located right next to the Rhine Falls:

The original layout opened to the public late november 2018, and closed in late 2025 due to a house move. Now Smilestones is re-established in new locations and opened to the public again april this year:

Here are some impressions of the layout, but I will also add a YouTube movie below so you fully enjoy this layout:

The control room

I really like all those (small) details and cameo scenes telling a story own their own. I probably even didn't spot them all:

I really like this miniature-/ park railway made in H0 by using Z-scale (1:220) rollingstock). This one can be seen in action in the video below:

Celeberties

This archaeological dig could have been in Norway as very many ex-German WW2 aircrafts ended under Norwegian tarmacs after WW2. Several of this type was in use in Norway. Do you recognize it? 

Another visiting model railway club??

This part of the layout was themed 'Heidi' from the early movies of the girl living with her Grandfather in the Swiss alps:

...But there were also other movie-references on this section:

I may have mentioned this before when posting blogs on MiWuLa in Hamburg, and that's the lack of military presence on such big layouts that seems to try to include everything else. On this layout military service was present however. One not so obvious military detail was these hillside fortified defensive gun positions which are very common in Switzerland:

Switzerland acquired over 100 Messerschmitts Bf 109 and used them to enforce their neutrality during WW2. Engagements with German Luftwaffe were not uncommon

More aviation:

A city by a lake:

At Smilestones they were working on another 'milestone'; a narrow gauge expansion:

At Smilestones they also have automatic day-and-night cycle changes. -Which I'm actually no great fan of:

The museum shop sold model railways, kits, toys, ice cream, beer and pretzels: 

I realize that there weren't many trains on my photos from Smilestones. I add a video with moving trains to compensate for this:

It was time for my travel group to go on. We were close to the Bodensee and not far away from Germany...