This miniature carousel is modeled after the historic merry-go-round in Griffith Park, Los Angeles and is powered by steam. Sonny Wizelman, a master of live steam models and dioramas, transformed what was essentially a steam-powered turntable into this impeccably detailed diorama.
After Sonny and his group of fellow small-steam railroaders studied the structure and mechanics of the real Griffith Park carousel, it was time to start building. Despite this team’s wealth of knowledge when it came to steam-powered locomotives, they faced a few bumps along the way. From finding miniature carousel animals to figuring out how to make the carousel run on steam instead of electricity and engineering the whole diorama, this project was nothing short of a challenge.
Making the carousel run on steam was a particularly big challenge as Sonny and his team were unsure if it had been done before or if it was even possible. They knew of miniature carousel’s that ran on electricity and of historic full-sized carousel’s running on steam but nothing of what he was determined to achieve. Sonny heavily modified his model of the locomotive, Accucraft Ruby, to be the carousel’s power plant. He turned it into a Falk, parked it on a piece of curved track, and placed it all on a flat car that would carry the steam engine.
Next, it was time for woodworking, music, and the final touches. Sonny and his team assembled the structure of the carousel and the diorama’s base using plywood. After this came the challenge of locating a miniature calliope for the carousel’s music aspect. This proved to be extremely difficult and very expensive so the team, with help from friend Rick Parker, came up with a different idea. They downloaded calliope music from the public domain onto an iPod shuffle which was then hidden inside the diorama’s ticket booth.
The final touches of this masterpiece were all up to Sonny as he created a highly detailed miniatures that brought the scene to life. No longer was this diorama a wooden turntable and steam engine but a fully realized park with animals, foliage, a picnic table, and so much more. After all of Sonny and his team’s hard work, this diorama was debuted at the Lois Lambert Gallery in Santa Monica, CA where Sonny had a six-month long exhibition titled, “A Moment in Time.”
Read an in-depth article and see behind the scenes photos of this build written and photographed by a member of Sonny’s team, Buzz Barry, here.
