French Model Railroad Layout in HO Scale of the Circular Railway La Petite Ceinture de Paris by Paul de Groot
Published on November 22, 2025
Paul de Groot’s model railroad layout is a special masterpiece in rail transport modeling. The entire model railway layout in HO Scale (1/87) is circular in design, like a round shelf layout, so that viewers can see the miniature world of Paris from all sides. The diameter of the construction is 3.0 meters. The visible miniature world (buildings, tracks, trains, etc.), however, is only 0.35 meters deep. The model train layout presents three sections of the famous circular railway line of Paris, namely “La Petite Ceinture de Paris”.
La Petite Ceinture de Paris is a circular railway built as a means of transporting merchandise and passengers between the major rail-company stations in Paris. Built in the second half of the 19th century, the line was freight-only in its first years. After the introduction of a passenger service from 1862, he famous circular railway line became Paris’s first metro-like urban transport. The line’s passenger service was a popular means of public transport until its 1900 Universal Exposition peak-traffic year.
When the first Metro line opened in Paris, the numbers of people using the local passenger service dropped steadily until its closure in 1934. Although maintained as a freight and main line passenger trains, even that use of La Petite Ceinture de Paris had come to a practical end by the 1990s. The circular railway line, which ran over bridges but also along lowered tracks between houses, was approximately 30 kilometers long and had 33 stations. The eight terminus stations in Paris were also served by connecting railway lines. Today, the old circular railway line and various rail stations are still clearly visible in the Paris cityscape.
Paul de Groot saw it as a challenge to depict the golden age of this circular railway as a model railroad layout. He focussed on life in Paris in earlier years, known as the “Belle Époque”. It was a period of French and European history that was characterised by optimism, enlightenment, regional peace, economic prosperity, nationalism, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. In this era of France’s cultural and artistic climate, the arts markedly flourished, and numerous masterpieces of literature, music, theatre and visual art gained extensive recognition. These masterpieces also included technical achievements, such as the flourishing of modern transportation infrastructure.
Due to the circular design, it was very difficult to film larger sections of the model railway layout. However, the scenes shown in Pilentum’s video present some of the most striking structures and buildings of Paris, such as the River Seine, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. The miniature world represents autumn in Paris with many street scenes behind the railway bridges and many small shops underneath the railway bridges. In addition, the beautiful buildings have not only interior decoration but also interior lighting.
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