Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg Germany, is the world´s largest model railway! It is a fascinating world with unbelievable detail making it a marvel of miniature model-making!
Miniatur Wunderland holds the Guinness World Record for the largest model railway, covering over 1,500 square meters (16,146 sq ft) with 15,400 meters of track length and 1,040 trains.
Obviously, the trains move, but also the trucks and cars which obey road rules and even switch on lights at night. There are moving ships, cranes, ski lifts and cable cars.
Taking all this to a different level there are numerous interactive buttons to push which initiate many different activities throughout the world.
The intro picture above is St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the Roman Amphitheater in the background.
In the center is Hamburg’s most beautiful and best known landmark, St. Michael’s Church which is one of the most important baroque churches in northern Germany.
It looks like the whole of the Hamburg Fire Department are fighting the building fire!
There are also iconic Hamburg landmarks like the St. Michaelis Church with moving bells, the Reeperbahn red-light district with tiny neon signs and Elbphilharmonie concert hall which opens up to show the interior in intricate detail.
There is a fully functional airport featuring realistic air traffic with 45 different aircraft, from Airbus A380 to Cessna and others in-between.
The planes are steered back from the gates by push-back vehicles and taxi to the runway by themselves. They then taking off and land with their turbines emitting a realistic sound. There are about 250 flights per day.
On the left is Lowenstein Castle which overlooks the town of Knuffingen which is one of the oldest theme worlds at the Wunderland, besides Austria and Central Germany. The castle has regular fire alerts but the Knuffingen Fire Brigade sorts it it out quickly and efficiently.
Knuffingen does not exist in the real world, it’s a fantasy town.
From the fantasy castle to one of the most famous castles.
On the right is Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone) Castle in Germany which was built by King Ludwig II and may be best known as the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.
There is so much to see with varied scenes rendered in meticulous detail.
From a Shuttle Launch to the Swiss Alps and from the Trevi Fountain in Rome to Mount Rushmore in the USA.
There is a regular change from day to night across the whole world.
Then there is night time and everything looks different in atmosphere and detail!
From a fun filled fairground to a cold snow covered train station and from a laid-back seaside resort to a busy Altare della Patria monument in Rome.
There are 389,000 LEDs that light up 4 110 buildings and 9,250 cars.
Volksparkstadion is one of the biggest buildings in Wunderland and is a model of the football stadium in Hamburg which took 1,200 working hours to build. There are 1.200 figures standing, sitting and cheering in stadium and about 2.000 LED’s provide illumination.
This is a legendary match between Hamburg’s two major soccer clubs, HSV (Hamburger Sport-Verein) and FC St. Pauli. The Hamburg Derby or Hamburger Stadtderby is a football rivalry between these two sides. In total, the two sides have met 107 times since 1919, of which Hamburger SV won 68 games and FC St. Pauli won 23 games.
HSV’s official club foundation year is 1887.
The American way of life in a very popular replica wild west town.
There is so much happening in this picture! The sheer scale of the life situations across the whole world almost feel endless.
There are 260,000 figures that have been arranged in real life situations. From broken down vehicles, to exercising, to sport, to picnics, to protesting, to eating out, to a drowned body police investigation, to punks with a dog, to just about anything you can imagine.
There is also tons of humour all over the place – from Ghostbusters, to E.T., to car accidents, to penguins waiting for a train, to a tricycle taking part in a bike race…………and tons more.
Here we have a very crowded Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and the three fountains in Piazza Navona in Rome with a band, much water throwing, spectators and photographers.
To further illustrate the intricate detail, this is a seaside village on the Amalfi Coast with 3 levels of zoom.
There is continuous development and construction so there are always plenty of new things to discover! A recent addition is the full Monaco F1 Grand Prix with cars racing and even pit stop action.
There are theme worlds covering Central Germany, Knuffingen, Austria, Hamburg, USA, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Italy, Fun Fair, Rio de Janeiro, Monaco and Patagonia.
For more up-to-date information visit the Miniatur Wunderland website