# So i went to Muniatur Wunderland



## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

i expected something very very grand, but still was tremendously impressed by the size of this venue. i learned all i could learn about the place, studied the plan, looked at pictures, planned my visit, butt o no avail - at the moment i got to the main floor i was lost.


we arrived at Hamburg at 4AM (From Amsterdam on DB City Night Line train) so the day started very early. we got lucky and they let us check in into our hotel room that early so we had a moment to catch a breath (legs were still not fully rested from running around the day before) and drop of our small luggage. We finished our Deutche Bahn breakfast and started walking.

my happy face:










we got in almost as the place opened. the ammount of visitors inside was quite a surprise given it was a work day and the streets them self were quite empty (compared to not only DT Chigaco, but say London) 
I was planning to do a brief overview of everything and them do another in depth walk around to savor the thing and take pictures. well, it didn't happen.After an hour or so, when we covered US and almost all of the Scandinavia, wife who actually really enjoyed the view asked to take a break. after ice cream in the cafeteria she decided to take a nap in the comfy ICE armchair and i continued alone. but then around 10-10:30 things got really crowded, waiting and sometimes pushing my way through to get to the handrails. keeping the arrogant german kids from pushing themself between me and the layout required some elbow work. taking pictures in there is not easy as it is, and then they were trying to push their cameras in front of my face to make it even more fun.

didn't manage to get any excellent pictures out of there, but still got a few not to bad ones.














































maintenance work during business hours












fixing derailment. working the conducting couplings apparently wasn't an easy task. eventually someone more competent had to help him out. but then it wasn't that easy of task either, without knocking the rest of the very long train of and destroying the dense catenary above the station. 












rest of the pictures are here: http://public.fotki.com/tankist/places/euro/11-hamburg-miniatur/

all in all i can say "WOW!!", but it seems that there are not to many trains running at a time (even thought the storage level underneath the main layout is full of cars and trains). most of the trains that are moving 
making horrible screeching sound. i suspect it might be the worn center pickup ski (they have bunch of marklin in there).

for those who intend to see it i highly recommend getting in there early. that way there will be an hour or 2 of relatively quiet viewing . entire day could be spent there easily (with breaks in cafeteria), but we had to move on. 



PS
that entire trip was almost all Railroading one. outside of crossing the pond it was all rail . well apart of two Ferry crossings, one of which was with the train rolling in. 
i will post photo review as soon as i clean and process the pictures, with total of +1200 i took in these i'm only half way through.


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## gc53dfgc (Apr 13, 2010)

You lucky dog you! I know partly why those trains are making that noise. It is the same problem Entertrainment Junction is having. The wheels and the trucks wear out very quickly because of there heavy use which is about 6-12 months max before works must be done. Another point of failure on them is the motors and gears which is a big thing for G because replacement parts are hard to come by. I suspect that the trucks and wheels are worn on the cars making the noise and the motors could be reaching there end as well. Thankfully for miniature wonderland replacement parts are a lot easier and cheaper to get then G. It is an amazeing layout to say the least. I hope when I build mine it has the same level of detail as that one has.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Excellent pictures Tank, :thumbsup:
nice clear shots and they don't have a time stamp.

That is a lot of pictures to go though if I were you I would keep them all. Even the ones you consider bad, who knows when you will make the trip again. 
Unless you do it every year.

External hard drives are cheap enough. I have one just for pictures.

Is the building where they are all trains? From the bottom floor to the top?

Nice pictures, Tanks for sharing.:thumbsup:


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

thanks 

well, when you look on any professional photo, you do not see date imprint do you? pros don't do them for a reason  no matter us not being professional photogs, we still can strive. i actually kept way to much. while my pics are about 15Mb each when Raw, HDD space is not an issue. i have total 3 1TB drives in the file server and pair of 2TB waiting to be put into service. its just the rule that says "if it is not shining, not standing out , shred it without mercy". i deleted bunch of junk, and should have kept ripping, but i just can't bring myself to delete any of the ones remaining. matter of time. i usually find the courage later 


miniatur wunderland taking "only" 3 stories of the building with top and some of the middle one dedicated to the layout. Switzerland area actually spans both floors - they removed the ceiling and the resulting mountains are towering above (which again i failed to capture). they actually have functional "roll-in, roll-off" elevators for trains of up to 7-8 feet or so length.

and dawg, as far as luck, well, the cost is affordable to mere mortal american. its just a ted more then the "eat yourself up all inclusive lay on the beach" vacation in Mexico. with a bit sacrifice and saving can be done. Plus Hamburg offers much more for a tourist to see and do .


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## norgale (Apr 4, 2011)

I'd rather have the date on my photos. That way I can tell when the pic was taken when I'm looking at it twenty years from now. I've taken tons of my family pictures and put them into albums chronologicaly and where the pics had no date it was really tough to figure out when they were taken. You can always crop the picture to eliminate the date info if ya have to. Pete


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

You can also just maintain the date stamp on the picture and know when it was taken without putting it on the photo.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Anton,

Great pics ... thanks for sharing.

Pretty impressive control room / computer systems.
Fabulous job on all of their water scenes ... shipping ports, swimming ponds, etc.
I especially like their old-Europe building structures, small towns, etc.

Great fun. Hope to get there some day!

TJ


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

thanks TJ and guys 

their control room is indeed mind boggling (and open for all to see). as i was there they were just training a team member on monitoring and operating it.
as far as pictures i think i got couple good ones but I actually can't pet myself on the back. i wanted to take a very specific ones and mostly failed to do so - i was so lost! 


PS
if anyone cares we just did a total for this trip (waited for everyone's credit card statements to update). in and out including travel, lodging, food, gifts and everything we made it just below 1500 a person. given, our companion is a travel freak who found us crazy good deals on airfare and hotels, but it just shows what careful shopper can achieve. hek, it is cheaper then even jamaica , let alone hawaii


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## norgale (Apr 4, 2011)

There are a couple of great videos of the German railroad on YuoTube. Shows the whole place and it's huge. Pete


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## pookybear (Feb 3, 2011)

Ok it is offical, I hate you, lucky dog!

Very nice photographs thank you for sharing, I hope I can make someday.

Pookybear


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