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Brothers Build World's Largest Model Train Set
xbeefsupreme writes "Frederick and Gerrit Braun of Hamburg, Germany began working on 'Miniatur Wonderland,' a massive model train set, in 2000. Although it is not complete yet, it covers 12,380 square feet of space, has six miles of track and so far has six sections representing different countries. Landmarks within the set include Mount Rushmore, the Matterhorn in Switzerland, and a 4-foot-long passenger ship floating in a miniature Scandinavian fjord."
Looks like HO scale, what a loser choice.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
It would be cool if they had a series of web cams in the peripher and installed on the trains so you could tour the set. Well, at least it would be for us that like trains and those kind of things.
Just wow. If I understood the german in one of the related videos correctly, each vehicle (car, truck, etc.) took around a week of work to complete. The various LEDs are all individually functional, for instance turn signals, break lights, and cabin lights. They use fairly simple steering control, just a wire under the road that a magnet attached to the front wheels follows. However, all else is controlled by a central computer sending instructions to the microcontrollers on each vehicle.
More interesting tidbits from the one video: automatic battery recharging for each vehicle, cycling between day and night in various sections, including turning on vehicle and street lights, building fires with smoke that get attended to by fire trucks, a car accident scene complete with police and what looks like the Thing holding up the front of a car.
I swear, the next time I'm in Germany, I have to look this place up. It would do any /.er proud!
The Small Layout Scrapbook covers layouts in space typically under two square meters/yards.