Ultimately, the specific era will be defined by the choice of train or road vehicle, as this diorama presents a timeless, tranquil, yet highly intriguing scene. The details constantly draw the eye; the longer you look, the more details you notice. A variety of effective design and construction methods were employed to achieve this result. While this article is presented as a "Showcase"—hardly surprising given such a beautiful outcome—we may well elaborate on the most frequently requested techniques in a future "Building with Markenburg" feature. So, for now, let us simply marvel at the scene presented in this diorama by Henk van Rhenen.
Henk possesses extensive experience in model making. He rarely produces formal design drawings; instead, he allows the concept to take shape in his mind, letting the idea mature gradually. He knows exactly what he can fit into his preferred scale (1:160) within the frequently used A4-sized footprint.
While the composition is largely planned in advance, elements may still be added or removed during the build process to enhance the visual appeal of the scene as a whole. The central subject was intended to be a small, modest bridge. Yet, that choice sets the tone for the entire diorama. So, which bridge does one choose?
In this case, the Binnenpolderse Vliet bridge. And although Henk has presumably not fully researched the history of the Groote Waard (just south of Dordrecht (NL)) and the origins of this type of landscape, a few key details are already embedded in the bridge's name. The term *binnenpolders* (inner polders) implies that the waterways serve a drainage function. They are not exactly major trade arteries; after all, no large towns are accessible via such a network of drainage ditches. Incidentally, a *vliet* is an artificial watercourse; here, it served to channel water—collected from the polder’s own network of man-made ditches—out of the polder and toward what is known today as the Amer River.
To clarify, we are talking about clay soils in the Dutch countryside that were made arable and habitable through intensive cultivation; otherwise, they would have remained—or quickly reverted to—highly unstable marshlands. Planting pollard willows, for instance, helped bind the clay together with their root systems. Willows thrive in wet soil, grow rapidly, and are easily propagated; simply sawing off a willow branch and sticking it into the wet ground can yield a new tree by the following year. The willows could be pollarded, providing withies (flexible shoots) for weaving baskets and other objects. While willows grow quickly, pollarding keeps them relatively short. Their trunks were used to make items such as clogs before the wood began to rot. The resulting gap in the row would typically be filled with a new shoot in the autumn.
Then there is the railway line, added to the landscape only centuries later. It was best situated on a embankment, as the clay simply lacked the load-bearing capacity for the train traffic—already relatively heavy at the time—and, above all, the line had to remain usable even if the surrounding fields were unexpectedly submerged under a layer of water (often during winter). Consequently, the bridge crosses the waterway at a considerable height, not so much to allow large boats to pass, but because the track itself sits on an embankment.
The fact that small boats could pass underneath was a welcome bonus; after all, around 1900, many people in the region still earned a living working in the Biesbosch, an area accessible almost exclusively by boat. Roads in these areas were, in fact, a later development. Until the 1960s, there was often no justification for paving them; paving materials were expensive, and people were accustomed to transporting goods primarily by small boat or by pack animal and cart. Lighter forms of road transport could manage without a paved surface. However, the post-war rise of trucks and the expansion of farms and the general trend toward larger-scale operations meant that larger, heavier vehicles began entering the polders. Yet, paving was rarely laid on specially constructed embankments; instead, existing cart tracks were usually the ones that were paved. This resulted in the creation of distinctive paved roads that had to climb up and over the railway embankment before descending again to the general level of the polder.
In areas like this, people remained largely self-sufficient for a long time. It is worth remembering that most people lived in rural areas rather than urban ones. Consequently, having a vegetable garden was the norm rather than a luxury or a hobby right up until the 1980s.
Linden trees—easily distinguished from willows by their leaf color, size, and shape were planted to serve as windbreaks in the otherwise open landscape; however, once a tree was old and large enough, it could be felled to provide material for tools, toys, and high-quality timber, with the offcuts used as firewood.
By Dutch standards, the area remains sparsely populated, featuring a scattering of hamlets and small villages, but consisting primarily of isolated houses and farmsteads in the countryside.
These include the well-known crossing-keeper’s cottages "Wachterswoningen"; for instance, the Langstraat railway line once had around 40 such buildings along a 46-kilometer stretch of track. Each keeper was responsible for a one-kilometer section, tasked with carrying out routine inspections and maintenance, as well as operating crossing gates and signals to ensure safety on the open line and at small sidings. This led to an interesting situation at the Binnenpolderse Vliet bridge. The bridge had been built to accommodate a double-track line, though initially only a single track was laid, with provision for a second track should train services increase significantly.
Yet, after twenty years of operation, there seemed to be little prospect of that happening. Consequently, the local crossing keeper decided to have a small wooden bridge span the gap between the existing masonry abutments, a modest wooden structure that could easily be removed if the need arose. Yet, for as long as it lasted, it certainly provided significant assistance to the crossing keeper in his daily tasks.
In reality, however, the entire bridge—including the wooden extension had to make way in the 1970s for a continuous embankment featuring a concrete culvert. The idea was that the existing functions could be maintained, but with even less maintenance required.
Thus, the choice of a small bridge can dictate virtually the entire design of the surrounding area: not only the bridge itself and the resulting elevation difference between water and track but also the landscape, and even the types of trees, building styles, and various scenes in the immediate vicinity of the bridge on the diorama. The art seems to lie in incorporating numerous subtle variations such as differences in height, dimensions, materials, and colors—without anything appearing out of place.
In this respect, Henk did not make things easy for himself, but the effort has paid off in the scene’s enduringly attractive appearance. After all, the diorama is not an exact replica of the actual setting around the small bridge, a task that could have been relatively simple, as it would have required no research into background details and merely a direct, one-to-one reproduction of what is or was visible. Yet, despite not being an exact copy of a real-world location, it captures everything that makes a scene realistic. Liberties were taken with the composition, but not with the underlying parameters dictated by time, nature, culture, and other factors. It is a modeling scene teeming with everyday details, details that are logical and realistic, and which could easily have been found in the low-lying provinces of the Netherlands.
This brings us back to the opening sentence. For while everything is subject to change thereby defining a specific era once the context is understood, it is changes in technology and, above all, fashion that have historically evolved most rapidly. A shift in the color scheme of railway rolling stock or the introduction of a new car model follows much more quickly than changes in architectural techniques or the patterns of landscape cultivation.