The Streets of Bethlehem in HO Scale

For May's Module Spotlight, we return to the Central New York Modelers and look at another one of their modules. This month we look at the award winning "The Streets of Bethlehem" built by Bill Brown, MMR. The 28"x72" module features a spectacular city scene from the 1950s complete with tremendous detail and animation. On the module, Bill shows off his structure building ability with lots of kit, kitbashed, and scratchbuilt structures each weathered and detailed. The module has lots of lighting with street lights, interior building lights, and flashing traffic signals. A high line on the module is animated with a reversing circuit that allows a train to move in and out of the scene, capturing the viewers attention. To make transportation easier, the entire back portion of the module which features the bulk of the city lifts off as a separate piece. When the module was first constructed this allowed the city portion of the module to be placed into the home layout Bill had. Bill has one numerous awards with the module. The first award won was the Baldwin Award for Best in Show during the June 2003 NMRA Northeast Regional Convention held in Fishkill, NY. In 2006, the module won the DPM Module Award for the best use of DPM City Classics structures on a module, and finally Best Module in Show at the 2006 National Train Show in Philadelphia, PA.-Modular Railroading Staff