Welcome to North Birk
Explore the Town of North Birk, the Birkemeier family’s N-Scale train table community.
North Birk is a town of tiny buildings and tiny people that live under glass in our living room—an N-scale model trainset measuring 28 x 36 inches. It was slowly constructed starting around 1990 and finally completed in 2001.
Construction was a family affair which started with kit-bashed buildings and evolved to include two running trains with rolling stock and over 52 vignettes to discover. Even today the trains run reliably and are still a crowd pleaser.
Enjoy visiting the Town of North Birk and have fun looking for the hidden scenes and surprises.
N-Scale
How big is all this?
Though not the smallest size (Z takes that prize), N gauge is 1:160 scale and the track measures in at 5/16″ wide between the rails. People are under 1/2″ tall. Vehicles are around 1″ wide and train cars are usually 3″ to 3.5” long. Needless to say, we used very tiny brushes and a magnifier to paint the town’s people.
visit
North
Birk
at Night
Vignettes
North Birk is filled with over 52 different characters and scenes. Can you find all of them?
Birk Beach
Creek & Ravine
Mount Birk
Downtown
Neighborhood Houses
Other Vignettes
Behind the Scenes
The small table necessitated a simplified track plan—a main outer loop, a connected inner loop and a small siding off the outer loop. There are three operating switches that allow a train to switch from one loop to the other and each section can be electrically isolated using the section switch. There’s a bonus built into the MRC Powerpack—two buttons enjoyed by everyone from 2-year old’s and up—one button for a steam locomotive sound and one for diesel.