Allen Drucker likes the view through the wrong end of a telescope.

Inside his shop, the displays seem to be right out of "Gulliver's Travels": a six-foot-long train winding through a Lilliputian landscape dotted with four-inch conifers, a 10-inch saloon, a foot-high bridge and six-inch men.

But it's the outside of his shop he is especially proud of. The building that houses Allied Model Trains is a model of Los Angeles' Union Station, the last great railroad terminal built in the country.

And Drucker says the sales have gone full steam since he moved his 43-year-old shop eight weeks ago to the new building on Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City from its earlier location on Pico Boulevard near the Westside Pavilion.

"I really attribute it to the building," he said. "Everybody talks about the building. Even those who are not interested in model trains drop in to have a look."

The unique architecture of the shop and the holiday season have together brought a stream of visitors: window-shopping pedestrians, children staring at the railroad cars chugging along the tracks and serious buffs such as Jerry Brown.

For Brown, 57, the shop is a nostalgic journey down memory lane. "I have been to Union Station many times. I watched them build it. Dad used to take me and my brother to the railroads. We waved at the engineer and he blew his horn. This shop has the same air about it. It's a perfect idea."

Drucker, 41, said the idea of moving to a shop that resembled Union Station was a combination of accident and circumstance. "The large trains took a lot of space. The shop wasn't big enough. And with the advent of the Westside Pavilion, . . . customer parking became a problem."

When his architect asked him to photograph buildings that could be used as references for the design of the new shop, Drucker said he found little that he liked at first.

Then, "one day on the way home, I was driving on the freeway and saw the Union Station. I started taking pictures, and the very first drawing came out so well that I went ahead with it."

The tower and the clock of Union Station have been scaled down to the exact proportion. But Drucker said it was impossible for him to be "completely faithful" to the original building. Union Station, built in 1939, is considered a classic synthesis of Spanish mission architecture and modern streamline design.