What a Trainset Layout

Good friend of mine was Engineer and then one of them "Ties" on the ole Santa Fe. He is an avid train person who is working on the ultimate layout at his place near the lake.

As a kid, we had a 4X8 HO layout that had about 5 levels and was really neat. Put it up in the parlor on St. Charles Place and BBB, the Bus, the Gentleman Farmer and I would spend hours playing with it.
Then while in Connecticut, I put together another train set in our Townhouse basement that was really cool (except mice love papermache)

Anyway here is a pic of the biggest layout around that Charlie sent me:



I have about 15 more pictures I can email, but would take 2 months to put up here,
UNLESS YOU WANT THEM HERE.... let me know

THIS IS REALLY SOMETHING.

This is the world's biggest train set which covers 1,150 square meters (12,380 square feet), features almost
six miles of track and is still not complete

Twin brothers Frederick and Gerrit Braun, 41, began work on the 'Miniatur Wunderland' in 2000

The set covers six regions including America , Switzerland , Scandinavia , Germany and the Austrian Alps

The American section features giant models of the Rocky Mountains, Everglades, Grand Canyon ...

...and Mount Rushmore

The Swiss section has a mini-Matterhorn

The Scandinavian part has a 4ft long passenger ship floating in a 'fjord'

It is expected to be finished in 2014, when the train set will cover more than 1,800 square meters (19, 376 sq ft)
and feature almost 13 miles of track, by which time detailed models of parts of France, Italy and the UK will have been
added

It comprises 700 trains with more than 10,000 carriages and wagons

The longest train is 46ft long

The scenery includes 900 signals, 2,800 buildings, 4,000 cars - many with illuminated headlights.. .

...and 160,000 individually designed figures




Thousands of kilograms of steel and wood was used to construct the scenery...

The 250,000 lights are rigged up to a system which mimics night and day by automatically turning them on & off

The whole system is controlled from a massive high-tech nerve centre

In total the set has taken 500,000 hours and more than 8 million dollars to put together, the vast majority of which has
come from ticket sales

Gerrit said: "Our idea was to build a world that men, woman, and children can be equally astonished and amazed in"

Frederik added: "Whether gambling in Las Vegas , hiking in the Alps or paddling in Norwegian fjords - in Wunderland
everything is possible"