As cities intensify and inner city roads are increasingly choked by cars, many governments are turning to “Light Rail” public transport options as the ultimate people mover.

This model, folded from a SINGLE UNCUT 12×32 proportioned rectangle is the very definition of “light rail”, coming in at around 80GSM!

This is an HISTORIC origami model, well, not precisely this fold, but the original model that was designed by Dr Emmanuel Mooser in 1962. The first diagrams for this model were cobbled together from hand-drawn notes in 1967. More importantly, this model proved that a multi-part model could be formed on a grid, thus formally beginning the origami technique of “box pleating”. There are arguably earlier models that used aspects of this technique, but “Mooser’s Train” is considered the first.

J. C. Nolan formalised the model with a set of diagrams and the set I worked from is from 2012, years after many additions and modifications were made to the model. The underlying structure however remains faithful to the hand-drawn original.

This model is an interesting exercise in restraint – although you need the grid, very few lines of the grid actually need to be folded – one day I will return and fold it with only the creases required, but this sojourn was started with a square grid on a 32:12 proportioned rectangle of Kraft.

Fashioning the carriages and locomotive flows fairly naturally, but I am so glad I made maquettes first, just to see where the pinch points and areas of bulk were, so I could better manage that in the final fold.

I must look for carriage modifications (I have seen photos of completed variations, but as yet have not been successful at finding crease patterns for the caboose, coal carriage and a few others).

If you fold the carriages as 10×12 sheets, then you can connect them together via the “coupler” paper that extrudes from each, so this could be the basis of an actual extendable trainset if you wanted – such a fun fold.

The locomotive is the real challenge, forming the boiler, cab and smoke stack required some really interesting pleating and “transition units” to change the regular grid to other divisions and orientations.

I used one of the cutoffs from the original grid (I folded a 32×16 grid originally, because that division is simple, based on a 2×1 rectangle and then cleaved off 4 units along the length of the sheet) and fashioned a set of “rails” for the model to be staged on. Getting this special narrow gauge so it sits under the wheels was a fun challenge but this model is now ready for a display case.

I am constantly reminded that modern paper folders and origami designers truly stand on the shoulders of giants.