Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Twelfth--wait is that the Eleventh?-- Anniversary this year of Miniatur Wunderland Model Railroad Installation--Incredible

I only became aware of this huge and super-detailed model railroad installation in Hamburg a couple of weeks ago when an old friend and I were discussing our experiences with model railroading as children.

In his case, the experience was limited, because once his father had set up the HO railroad tracks and trains on plywood on wooden horses in the basement, he proceeded to dominate the use of it-- another one of these cases of a "gift" for someone turning out to REALLY one for the "giver."

(This reminds me of The Simpsons episode where Homer has to buy Marge a last minute anniversary gift and of all things comes up with a bowling ball--which Marge accurately says of,"This isn't for me, it's for you!"--She then defiantly takes up bowling as a revenge on Homer, including getting dangerously and hilariously involved with her suave and seductive French bowling instructor she meets at the local lanes.)

My experience was somewhat similar, because just as in the case of my friend, it was my father who was the model train enthusiast. My father was a train enthusiast, period. He could never understand how we had let our railroads go to hell just because the oil and trucking lobbies had conspired to make the most of Eisenhower's interstate highway system and put not only America's railroads just about out of business, but also of course destroyed Los Angeles' Public Transportation system..

But America has been the country of the automobile ever since Henry Ford revolutionized THAT industry, and there is something in the DNA of Americans that makes them shun mass transit ( I can of course understand that with my experiences with the the New York subway, but I don't want it to fall apart!--just the opposite).

In our case, to make a long story short, my father had a ton of not just some Lionel trains and later HO models, but a couple of crateloads of toy trains that his friend Major Bilbo had "liberated" from the Maerklin toy works in Germany at the end of World War II...

This material included included not only a hell of a lot of O gauge track, but also these wonderful locomotives and cars of all kinds, and even a complete German Bauhaus-inspired railroad model station ( and I mean complete, it also had a small Nazi swastika flag to fly at the station).

We would set all this stuff up usually around Christmastime and my brother and I would have fun with it for a while, my father getting in whenever he could, with the smell of those track circuits shorting out somewhat always in the air...one winter we set up a railroad that ran the length of the second floor of our house, from my room at one end and down a long hallway to my brother's room at the other).

My father also, of course, had all these model railroading magazine that were still popular into the 1960's and even beyond...almost all the trains eventually ended up being sold off finally except for some remarkably rare pieces..with the bulk of it going to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, which set up a special exhibit with all of it...they had it there for some time, I understand.

BUT --back to Hamburg and this "crazy" massive model railroad set up that I gather was started at the end of the 20th Century and opened in 2001 (my friend sent me a link to a video about it, something like this one:(They have been assiduously expanding the place with each passing year).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACkmg3Y64_s

As I said, this place has to be seen to be believed, so watch the video whatever you do.

America now belatedly is still trying to keep its railroads running with what it has left, in part inspired by ecological considerations...but for instance, most of the system is gone forever, just like the magnificent Municipal Railroad station they built in Buffalo is now a sad ruin..

(Above, in its heyday, below, a sad wreck that can never be restored in a million years)--or can it? Some people are doing their best to try and do something--

http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/restoring-buffalos-once-great-train-station-starts-building-outdoor-urban-classroom.html

Finally, let me add what Wikipedia has to say ( in case you refuse to watch the video! Basically a recap of same thing)

Miniatur Wunderland (German for miniature wonderland) is a model railway attraction in Hamburg, Germany and the largest of its kind in the world, built by the twins Gerrit and Frederik Braun. As of January 2011, the railway consists of 12,000 metres (39,370 ft) of track in HO scale, divided into seven sections: Harz, the fictitious city of Knuffingen, the Alps and Austria, Hamburg, America, Scandinavia, and Switzerland. Of the 6,400 square metres (68,889 sq ft) of floorspace, the model takes 1,150 m² (12,378 sq ft).^[1]
By 2020, the exhibit is expected to have reached its final construction phase, including at least a total of ten new sections in a model area of over 2,300 m² (24,757 sq ft).^[1] The next section covering an airport opened in May 2011. The exhibit includes 890 trains made up of over 11,000 carriages, 300,000 lights, 215,000 trees, and 200,000 human figurines. The creators will work on models of Italy and France now that the airport section is completed. The airport is named Knuffingen International Airport and is modeled after Hamburg International Airport. Possible future additions include Africa, England, or a futuristic landscape.^[1]

History

The construction of the first part started in December 2000 and the first three parts were completed in August 2001. The project was created by twin brothers Frederik and Gerrit Braun.^[2]

Overview of the different sections

Section	Name	Completion date	Size
1	Harz (or Middle Germany)	August 2001	c. 120 m²
2	Knuffingen	August 2001	c. 120 m²
3	Austria	August 2001	c. 60 m²
4	Hamburg	November 2002	c. 200 m²
5	America	December 2003	c. 100 m²
6	Scandinava	July 2005	c. 300 m²
7	Switzerland	November 2007	c. 250 m²
8	Knuffingen Airport	May 2011	c. 150 m²
9	Italy	End 2013 (planned)	c. 150 m²