Google Street View is downsizing. They’ve taken us deep into the seven seas and up perilous rock faces but now, they’re taking us somewhere very small: Hamburg’s Miniatur Wunderland, a huge model train set.
The best part is, you can immerse yourself in this miniature Wunderland without drinking any sketchy potions.
The model train set currently covers nearly 14,000 square feet with over 8 miles of miniature train tracks running through scenes in Europe and the United States. There’s even a tiny space shuttle at Cape Canaveral. Currently, there is an Italy-themed area under construction, with France, Great Britain, and Africa soon to follow. The 930 trains, along with buildings, a state-of-the-art airport and lights are controlled by 46 computers.
To immerse us in the tiny world, Google developed a set of tiny cameras that they sent onto the tiny roads and train tracks.
Check out some of the amazing scenes from Google Street View in the gallery above, or watch the behind-the-scenes video, showing the miniature makers at work, and a tiny version of a Google Street View car:
