| Miniatur Wunderland | |
| Native Name Lang: | de |
| Type: | Limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) |
| Industry: | Model railway |
| Location City: | Hamburg |
| Location Country: | Germany |
| Key People: | Frederik & Gerrit Braun, Stephan Hertz |
| Num Employees: | 360[1] |
The Miniatur Wunderland (German for: "Miniature Wonderland") is, according to Guinness World Records, the largest model railway system in the world.[2] It is located at the historic Speicherstadt in Hamburg and is one of the most popular and most visited sights in Germany.[3] [4]
The exhibition includes around 1,120 digitally controlled trains with more than 10,000 wagons. The Wonderland is also designed with around 4,300 houses and bridges, more than 10,000 vehicles – of which around 350 drive independently on the installation – 52 airplanes and around 290,000 figures. The system features a recurring day-night lighting cycle and almost 500,000 built-in LED lights. Of the 7000m² of floorspace, the models occupies 1545m².[5]
As of December 2021, the railway consisted of 16138m (52,946feet) of track in H0 scale, divided into nine sections: Harz mountains, the fictitious town of Knuffingen, the Alps and Austria, Hamburg, the United States, Scandinavia, Switzerland, a replica of Hamburg Airport, Italy and South America. Planning is also in progress for the construction of sections for Central America and the Caribbean, Asia, England, Africa and The Netherlands.[6]
In the summer of 2000, Frederik Braun, one of the two founders of Miniatur Wunderland, was on vacation in Zurich. In a local model train store he came up with the idea for the world's largest model railway.[7] Back in Hamburg, he searched for email addresses online and started a survey on the popularity of real and fictional sights of the city. In the process, the Miniatur Wunderland, which did not yet exist, was ranked 3 by male respondents.
According to Braun and his twin brother Gerrit, the initial idea and business plan for Miniatur Wunderland fit on just two pages.[8] The financial backer was Hamburger Sparkasse.[9] [10]
After construction began in December 2000, the first three sections (Knuffingen, Central Germany and Austria) opened on 16 August 2001. Since then, several sections have been added. With the completion of the Hamburg, German Coast section in November 2002, Wunderland became the largest model railroad in Europe. The United States was added in December 2003, followed by Scandinavia in July 2005. On 10 September 2015, the Brauns added the final piece of track between the Switzerland section and a new Italy section, extending the track length from to . An observing Guinness judge presented the certificate for the newly established world record.[11]
The 190m2 Bella Italia section was opened on 28 September 2016 after four years under construction, involving 180,000 man hours and costing around €4 million.[12] Work on the Monaco / Provence section started in August 2019 and, when completed, added another . The total length of currently therefore corresponds to in real length, making Miniatur Wunderland the largest model railway layout in the world by all measures.[13]
In 2020, a bridge connected the original Wunderland to a building across the canal.[14] The new space features depictions of Antarctica and South America, including Rio de Janeiro.[15] Construction on Monaco and Provence, featuring a Formula One circuit, was concluded in 2024.[16] [17]
Other future projects include Central America/Caribbean and Asia. The creators say construction on Great Britain will begin in 2028.[18]
| Number | Section | Completion | Size | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Central Germany / Harz | August 2001 | ca. 120 m2 | ||
| 2 | Knuffingen (Fictional town) | August 2001 | ca. 120 m2 | ||
| 3 | Austria | August 2001 | ca. 60 m2 | ||
| 4 | Hamburg | November 2002 | ca. 200 m2 | ||
| 5 | United States | December 2003 | ca. 100 m2 | ||
| 6 | Scandinavia | July 2005 | ca. 300 m2 | ||
| 7 | Switzerland | November 2007 | ca. 250 m2 | ||
| 8 | Knuffingen Airport | May 2011 | ca. 150 m2 | ||
| 4 a | November 2013 | ca. 9 m2 | |||
| 9 | Italy | September 2016 | ca. 190 m2 | ||
| 9 a | Italy – Subsection Venice | February 2018 | ca. 9 m2 | [19] | |
| 1 a | June 2020 | ca. 9 m2 | [20] | ||
| 10 | The World From Above (Bridge crossing to South America) | December 2021 | ca. 10 m2 | ||
| 11 | Rio de Janeiro | December 2021 | ca. 220 m2 | ||
| 13 | Patagonia | May 2023 | ca. 150 m2 | [21] | |
| 12 | Monaco / Provence | April 2024 | ca. 63 m2 | [22] | |
| 14 | Central America & The Caribbean | 2025 (under construction) | ca. 150 m2 | [23] | |
| 15 | Asia | 2026/2027 (planned) | ca. 150 m2 | ||
| 16 | Great Britain | 2028/29 (planned) |
Visitors explore different rooms throughout a long corridor. Trains run along the walls of the rooms and on peninsula-like protrusions. The layout consists (as of September 2016) of nine completed sections of 60m2300m2.[24]
Special features include a simulated daily routine where twilight, night and day repeat every 15 minutes. This includes an automatic lighting control system that activates more than 300,000 lights to match the time of day.
The 120m2 fantasy town of Knuffingen, with a population of about 6,000, is equipped with more than 100 moving model cars, including numerous fire engines, which are used to simulate a firefighting operation in Knuffingen every 15 minutes on average. Traffic simulation is made possible by a modified car system that is also used in the USA, Scandinavia and Knuffingen Airport sections. In the America section, an Interstate Highway is equipped with a dynamic Traffic Control System, which uses variable-message signs with 2x16 characters, lane use control lights, and 4 different speed limits to control traffic.[27]
Intricate details include a changing scoreboard in the Volkspark Stadium, speeding cameras and a crashed cheese wheel truck. There is also a Jet gas station displaying the real current gasoline prices of its prototype in Hamburg's Amsinck street.[28]
Visitors can control operations on the system through about 200 push-buttons, including options to start a mine train, turn wind turbines, trigger a goal in the football stadium, launch a helicopter or the Space Shuttle, or elongate Pinocchio's nose. One button allows visitors to watch the simulated production of a small chocolate bar in a factory, resulting in a block of Lindt chocolate dispensed for the visitor to sample.[29]
Certain tours also include a behind-the-scenes look at detailed figures that cannot be seen from the normal public area.
After six years in planning and under construction, Knuffingen airport was officially opened to visitors on 4 May 2011 as a special section of the facility. Its buildings resemble Hamburg Airport. As in the fictional main town of Knuffingen, there is also a simulation of a fire department with a large fleet of vehicles, including four airfield fire engines. On the 14meter runway, aircraft models accelerate to scale on an invisible sled, and by means of two guide rods can lift off the ground and disappear into a wall. Depending on the launch phase, the guide rods allow a horizontal tilt of the aircraft that approximates reality.
The section features a wide variety of standard commercial aircraft, including Boeing 747, Boeing 787, Airbus A350 and Airbus A380, in the liveries of active and defunct airlines from around the world. There is also a Concorde in British Airways livery, a Space Shuttle, a bee and a model of the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars.
The movement of the aircraft on the ground is realized with the help of technology based on the car system. The vehicles in the airport tell their own little stories with coordinated refueling, loading and unloading before and after landing starting from the aircraft parking positions.
Unlike the other landscapes, the railroad at the airport is hardly visible. There is only an airport station underground.
According to the operators, the 150m2 space cost around 3.5 million euros, in addition to 150,000 man hours. The area is equipped not only with many rolling aircraft models, but also with hundreds of cars, passenger boarding bridges, parking garages, airport hotels, a subway and individual figures.
On 5 December 2012 the ten-millionth visitor came to Miniatur Wunderland[13] and on 2 December 2016 the fifteen-millionth.[30] Around three quarters of visitors come from Germany, while the remaining quarter hail mainly from Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, England, the US and China.[31]
In 2010, founders Frederik and Gerrit Braun and Stephan Hertz were awarded the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for their social commitment.[32] The Miniatur Wunderland also holds the Guinness World Record for "longest melody played by a model train."[33]
Several times following completion of the various expansion stages, the Hamburg section was visited by a team of reporters from Eisenbahn-Romantik from SWR. Numerous television stations, magazines and newspapers have reported on Miniatur Wunderland.[34]
In May 2009, rapper Samy Deluxe filmed a portion of the music video for the song "Stumm" in Miniatur Wunderland. About 100 sequences were recorded in which a miniature figure "runs" (stop-motion) through the layout.[35]
On 5 December 2009 the outdoor betting section of the German television show Wetten, dass..? took place at Miniatur Wunderland.[36]
The plot of several episodes of the Hamburg crime series Großstadtrevier takes place at Miniatur Wunderland.[10]
In 2015, together with singer Helene Fischer, a campaign for Ein Herz für Kinder was launched in which over 450,000 euros (as of 01/2016) were collected. The campaign was presented, among others, in the Ein Herz für Kinder Gala.[37]
In January 2016, Miniatur Wunderland partnered with Google MiniView – a miniature version of Google Street View.[38]