Miniatur Wunderland, Model railroad museum in Hamburg-Mitte, Germany.
Miniatur Wunderland is a model railway layout in the Speicherstadt of Hamburg, covering about 1,700 m² on two levels. Visitors follow winding corridors past twelve sections, from the Harz mountains and the fictional town of Knuffingen to the Swiss Alps, which rise almost six metres through a ceiling opening. A glass-walled bridge across the canal links the original building to the newer South America rooms.
Frederik Braun conceived the idea in summer 2000 in a Zurich model train shop, then founded Miniatur Wunderland GmbH in 2001 with his father Jochen W. Braun, twin brother Gerrit and Stephan Hertz. Construction began in December 2000, and the first three sections (Knuffingen, Central Germany and Austria) opened on 16 August 2001.
The layout presents Hamburg as its home city through the port and warehouse district, while visitors also walk through American canyons and Italian coastlines. Each region follows its own rhythm with commuter trains, cargo ships, and airplanes arriving at tiny terminals.
The museum opens early on weekend mornings and closes between 18:00 and 21:00 depending on the season. Visitors should plan at least two hours to view the different sections calmly.
The layout uses more than 500,000 built-in LED lights for its recurring day-night cycle. In the Knuffingen Airport section, opened in May 2011, model Boeing 747s, Airbus A380s and even a Concorde accelerate along a 14-metre runway on an invisible sled.
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