28.05.07 at 13:59 hrs

Weekly Report No 343, CW 21

The Matterhorn top is finished. Of course, colorization is not yet completely done. On the side not shown on the picture, we included another service hatch to allow the technicians access to the tracks within the mountain.

Plaster works continue in the Engadin. During the next days and weeks, these hills will eventually meet the Matterhorn and form a large mountain area.

Last week, we showed you our wall paintings. Since then, work has continued but is still not finished, as some details and the sky are still missing. It is very important to always match the correct view. Therefore, we always start with some thin pencil lines and check the perspective thoroughly. Only after that step, we start painting with the real colours. And even then, we have to take care of the shades and the correct representation of the light. These and lots of other details, which could be explained much better by an artistic painter than by a lighting technician, can we finally form a realistic painting.

Working platforms do still hinder the view into Bietschhorn valley, but you can already get a quite good impression of the final presentation to the visitors. In this part, vegetating is almost finished and the modellers hurry up to add houses and all the other small details. The technicians were waiting to get their hands on them to add light and special effects.

A small oddity: It seems as if one of our modellers took the advice "This building gets a side track" a bit too serious and just placed it directly on the tracks. Of course, this is only been an intermittent position but we did not want to keep this photo back.:-)

The children’s playground we introduced last week is now finished and awaits its final placement.

All devices are animated and do therefore form another highlight in this section. Ok, the sandbox is actually NOT animated...

On our discussion board, we often read the question: When will the Transrapid operate?

A huge problem so far was the wood line which has been warping again and again. Finally, everything, including the maglev itself, has been redesigned. Currently, the technicians make the electronic compatible to our train control so that the Transrapid can be operated automatically. However, this will need some more days. We'll keep you informed on this during the next weekly reports. Sometimes, miracles happen... ;-)

25th of May 2007 was the Day Of The Missing Children. We participated in this with a small action area any many events. We hosted the missing children parents' initiative so that they could present their important work to press and public.

The initiative's goal is not only the search for missing children, but also support for affected parents and prevention work.

A short view into the Car System workshop:

We see four almost finished new vehicles for the America section.

They only await some finishing touches and the new software.

Further cars are in the work, as one can vaguely see on picture 16. Currently, we plan more than 40 new vehicles for all of the existing sections. 10 of them are already under construction. Just look out for the new entries in our Car System database!