Thursday, March 26, 2009

The ultimate model train set

 

As I watched this video of the Miniatur Wunderland my mind went from mild amusement to surprising awe to absolute astonishment. At 11,840 square feet and fully computerized, the world's largest model defies belief:

The Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany is the world’s largest model set.

It took 500,000 working hours to build, going from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to North America, through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland—complete with the Grand Canyon, 20-foot tall Swiss mountains, and:

• 800 trains.
• Over 10,000 train cars in total, running several hundred kilometers every day.
• One train is 47.5 feet long.
• Over 170 computer controlled cars.
• More than 200,000 people (there’s all kinds of things here, even a crime scene).
• Controlled by 40 computers.
• 200 cameras control the premises.
• Day and night lighting simulator.
• 300,000 computer-controlled LEDs.

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