Outlook 2010

An eventful year 2009 lies behind us. We made great progress in the Airport layout, next to special activities like Utopia 2009 for the Election, and our participation in “You Bet!”.
In the forecast 2009, we asked ourselves, whether we could beat our visitor record of the previous year, whether expansions of Wunderland are possible, and how we will progress with the Airport.
Now, one year later, we see our previous record broken again, and the inauguration of the Airport in spitting distance, figuratively speaking. We are positive, that the developments in 2010 will be no less spellbinding than in the past year. We summarized for you, which highlight are to be expected in the upcoming 12 month.

Expansions
Since December it is official: with the acquisition of the 2nd floor of Nord Event, Miniatur Wunderland will expand within the building. Once again, we will have to dislocate some parts of Wunderland to create space for the new layouts – Italy and France. We are already looking forward to plan these spectacular landscapes.

Thank you, Hamburg
Much of Miniatur Wunderland’s success is due to its hometown Hamburg. We are particularly looking forward to the fact, that the one millionth Hamburg citizen will be visiting us this year. Of course, we will celebrate this event with a special activity. What exactly? We’ll keep it secret until then.

Airport
The most important issue will be the inauguration of the Airport, which we are looking forward to since more that 2 years by now. We expect to open up our 8th layout by September this year, almost 3 years after opening Switzerland. Knuffingen Airport, a giant simulation of a commercial airport will set new technical standards.
On over 150 m² we will again show numerous highlights, among others an even more realistic Car System, a gigantic 4 meter long car park, and a fully illuminated airfield.
Without doubt, the most spellbinding eye-catcher will be the air traffic. On a regular basis different aircrafts will take off and disappear behind clouds. Later on, they will approach for the landing. As in real life, a display will give information about the status of the plane, arrival and departure times, and even delays will happen

Finishing touches for already existing tracks
In Hamburg, we will replace the overhead contact lines, using Sommerfeldt catenary in the future. Renovation measures at the catenary in Austria, Harz, and Knuffing are finished, so will can dedicate our time to other open construction sites.
With only few exceptions, all signals in the layouts Knuffingen, Hamburg, and Austria (converted to ÖBB) are finished. Only a few parts for semaphore signals are still missing. . Now, we “only” have Scandiavia left for retrofitting. Also, we are considering adopting the railroad crossings of Switzerland in other layouts. Another technical project would be to activate turntables, which we already announced a while ago. We still have to decide on the location, the decorations, and puzzling out the permanent train traffic.

Seven million visitors
Next to the millionth Hamburger (;-) , we hope to greet the 7 millionth visitor, altogether. After two record years, we are curious, whether over 1 million guests from all over the world will find their way to Wunderland within the next 12 month, and we will achieve our set goal, again.

In the past, we lived for and with many surprises. Insofar, we are not able to foresee each facet of the upcoming year. In any case, we are expecting a colourful 2010, and are looking forward to sharing it with you