Miniatur Wunderland – largest model railway in the world
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I was there in 2004, and it was pretty spectacular then. They’ve added a lot more to it since I was there, it looks like — they were just then building the Scandinavian section with boats moving through real water, and that airport is completely new. I have a video about the place that covers some of the history of it… Seems it really was conceived as a gigantic model railroad, but it would have to earn its keep as a tourist attraction. The originators did a survey of potential visitors to gauge interest in the attraction, and discovered to their horror that women as a class had virtually no interest at all in looking at a model railroad. Too male and too geeky, apparently. A hypothetical “beer museum” scored higher on the survey as a draw for tourists. They got around this by pitching the place as a “miniature wonderland” in the advertising, talking it up as a whole wonderful miniature world that the whole family could enjoy while somewhat deemphasizing the railroad aspect of it (that would appeal only to some small group of middle-aged male railroad buffs).