Google has done some impressive “Treks” to document unlikely places for Street View. But this time the company didn’t go big. It went really small.
For #MiniView, Google worked with the German interactive map group Ubilabs to get extensive Street View footage of Hamburg’s Miniatur Wunderland, the largest miniature railroad in the world. Google used specially designed, miniature 3-D cameras, and the “tiny cameras were mounted on tiny vehicles that were able to drive the roads and over the train tracks.”
Miniatur Wunderland has 13 kilometers (about 8.1 miles) of railroad track and more than 200,000 tiny model citizens. There are seven districts, mountains, cities, and an airport. And Engadget notes that Miniatur Wunderland is going to add other locations like England and France within the next five years. Italy is opening in a few months.
Whether you loved model trains as a kid or never had them, now is your chance to go into a miniature, but very deep, rabbit hole.