Model trains have brought joy to generations of children and adults. The fascination in viewing the world created in a small scale such as H0 (1:87) is an excellent diversion for children while awaiting medical treatment.

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the ETE (European Train Enthusiasts) unveiled an operating H0 layout encompassing 32 square feet on April 18, 2007 at the new Mountain View Medical Center located at 701 East El Camino Real in Mountain View, California. The layout was built and installed in the waiting room as a legacy to Dr. Marvin Small, the chief pediatrician, who recently passed away after a battle with cancer.

The layout was built at the home of Steve Imialek and then installed into the display space one week prior to the grand opening.	Steve works to install the scenery and small accessories on site.
Märklin, Inc. donated trains, track, railroad crossings and signals for the layout.	Dr. Slavin, CEO of Mountain View Medical Center presses the button, the trains start and the trial run is a success.
Dieter Vorbach, the group's resident artist, completed many of the fine details.	The 4' x 8' layout can be viewed from two areas of the waiting room. Dr. Small's family donated some of the buildings used on the layout. The figure eight loop breaks the scenery into a nursery, stable and farm area separate from a village with mostly half-timbered structures and a town square. There are two stations, one serving the inner loop and functions as both a passenger and freight stop, and the other small station serves passengers on the outer loop.
Presently, the trains are running about 40 hours per week as an estimated 350 children a day get to push the button and run the trains for about three minutes.
While Märklin, Inc. is proud to be a sponsor of the Mountain View Medical Center layout, our thanks and appreciation goes to the members of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the ETE for all their hard work and continued dedication to this project. The layout building crew from left: Jens Ullmann, Rolf Krumbiegel, Steve Imialek, Wolfgang Leitenberger, Dieter Vorbach and Wolfgang Auerbach (not shown). A special thank you to Wolfgang Leitenberger for acting as liaison with Märklin, Inc. staff through the planning stages of our sponsorship. Photos: Wolfgang Leitenberger Layout description courtesy of European Train Enthusiasts www.ete.org