We were up and out early this morning and took the U-Bahn to get to Miniature Wunderland. However we found that the gates don't open until 9 and so we had a little time to spare. The canals are quite interesting, there were a large number of tufted ducks diving while another of the canals we passed was at low tide and showed a lot of mud. We while the way the time until nine at a backeri with a cafe latte.
We decided to take a look at the new sections first and cover the rest later. In all we saw about three quarters today and will see the rest tomorrow.
Provence
This is one of the new layouts which we hadn't previously seen. It is notable for the vast fields of lavender which are immediately apparent. There are lots of little scenes of buildings on top of mountainous areas with incredibly good detail and if you look hard there are a lot of people working and being busy.
There is a good water scene passing right through and and tat he back it looks like a reproduction of the Pont du Gard. There are three nuns sitting on the wall of a monastery high up in the hills.
Fields of lavendar
Wonderful detail
The Bridge
The new bridge over the canal between the two buildings is quite a feat in itself. It is on a slight gradient higher at the old building to the new building but there is an incredible range of modelling displayed on one side. There is a double track with a great variety of trains running. There are lavender fields of Provence, Dutch bulb fields, a Pacific island with a lagoon, part of a large container vessel, arctic ice floes, whales jumping out of the water, terraces probably from the Philippines, a desert with pyramids, salt flats likely from Bolivia and a South American market place.
View from the bridge over the canal.
The bridge
Market place
There was a constant stream of trains, passenger and freight crossing between the two buildings.
South America
The new South American section is vast. My first impression is the Incredible amount of detail that has been put into here both in the terms of figures and vast buildings being lit individually by computer. Copacabana Beach has a lot of interesting things to see and I found that if I kept going back I would find something new and different. I think the pictures will show more than my words.
Rio de Janeiro at night
Copacabana Beach
Copacabana Beach
A run down bus station
A rail cleaning train
There were lots of buttons for kids to push to see lights and animation
Mardi Gras
After Lunch
We started to take a look at the earlier part which we have already seen a couple of times. There was a great deal of work carried out during the pandemic, particularly adding computer aided lighting to buildings, upgrading older items and inserting new items. I set out below a few pictures I took today.
Sweden
A new formal garden
Sheep with a sheep dog
Ship sailing into port
Night lighting can show up some good features
Shaun the Sheep was a cartoon character of a BBC series by Wallace and Gromit.
A train of Christmas trees
A very large concert
The crowds were not too bad although there were a number of school groups. It was tiring and we left around 4 p.m.
Zurich Hauptbahnhof Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof. This will be in several parts. The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza. The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a sing...
This video, by Noel Wyler, shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip
This is the only picture I took today - Hamburg Hauptbahnhof We took Air France from Ottawa to Paris with a connection to Hamburg. There was great chaos in the security section at Ottawa airport. One of my bags was diverted onto the intense search section and it was evident that with the speed they were going it would take a long time. I found a supervisor who explained and facetiously offered to get me a chair to sit on while I waited - which I facetiously accepted. After this it seems the whole process was speeded up and my bag was quickly released from the security prison. This made us late getting to the gate but a quick word with one of the staff at the gate in which I explained how my leg could be very painful if I had to stand up for some time and we finished up being in the first group to get on the aircraft after the wheelchairs. At Paris we had a long wait for our connection to Hamburg and this time one of the security staff came over and invited Paul and I to be first on the...
Comments
Post a Comment