State of the Art of Railway Modelling and Model Railroading

Book excerpt: Perhaps you know that in Germany the world’s largest model railway exhibition exists. It is a permanent model railway exhibit with thousands of model trains, and there are several model railroad layouts, displays and sections, for example Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and the famous model airport in HO scale. In September 2016, a new section was opened. This new layout is called “Beautiful Italy”, and it is a masterpiece in model building. It is the state of the art of model railroading. The entire country of Italy is represented on an area of approximately 300 square meters. There are the volcano Vesuvius near Naples, Pompeii, the ancient Roman town-city, the beautiful Amalfi Coast along the coastline of the Salerno Gulf in Southern Italy, South Tyrol, Liguria, Tuscany and of course, the capital city Rome with its St. Peter’s Basilica and with the Colosseum or Coliseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre. This new model railway layout is a work of art in the field of rail transport modelling. It is located at the so-called “Wonderland of Miniatures” in Hamburg, Germany. Visitors of this model railroad exhibit will be a little overloaded because there are amazing, impressive and loving details on every square meter: There are hundreds of little stories which a told by the sceneries. Furthermore, the day and night illumination in Liguria and on the Amalfi Coast is absolutely impressive.