Miniature Wonderland

After many transfers and hours on the train, we made it to Hamburg, Germany.  Truth be told, the only reason we were in Hamburg was to go see the “Miniature Wunderland”, a permanent display of model trains and sceneries from around the world.  The story was that two brothers won the lottery and decided to spend their winnings on creating this miniature ‘wonderland’.  Alex is a huge fan of these things, and I myself am no stranger to these trains; my dad and my uncle loves trains, which has caused many fights in the past. 

I’ve been to a couple of these ‘train shows’ with Alex in the past.  I was a bit worried for my sanity because Alex can spend an entire day at these events, just watching trains go by.  I’ll stick around, see each display maybe once or twice, but could never do a whole day.  I’d just get bored.  I guess it’s the equivalent of a department store for women; while women shop, men sit and wait.  At train shows, it’s the women doing the sitting and waiting.  I was, however, a bit optimistic as this was supposed to be the largest model train display in the world, and there would be enough things for me to look at, long enough to keep me sane.

Even though I wasn’t a big fan of model trains, I was impressed at the level of details and thought that went into these displays.  First of all, the display is huge.  It takes up about 2~3 floors altogether.  They have sceneries mimicking different parts of the world; United States, Scandinavian countries, neighboring European countries and the city of Hamburg itself.  And they’re still not done.  Apparently, there would be more countries added to their collection of displays, with everything planned to be completed in 2014.  It was quite impressive.  In one section, they actually used real water in the display!  They can control it to mimic the tide, and they had a remote control operated boat in it as well!!

Along with the trains moving, they also had cars and trucks moving.  They could mimic traffic jams on certain streets.  Sometimes, a ‘fire’ would break out in a building (the interior of the building would glow orange-red) and the fire trucks would drive from the fire stations with their sirens blaring.

After every couple of minutes, it would become ‘night’, where the lights were dimmed to mimic the sun setting to eventually darkness and all the buildings were lit up magnificently.  There were special buttons placed around the display that viewers could press to start up some mechanism; a button to start the gondolas in ski resorts, or the rides at festivals.  The kids loved it, and so did the adults.  We took in every little detail they had to offer for six and a half hours.  I had to go sit and wait for a bit, as I got a little fatigued from standing for so long.  But if you’re a fan of the model trains, you’re bound to be blown away by these displays.