more Wunderland photos

No doubt it was inspired by the Lucky Luke comic. It looks very much like the artist's view of Europe that is displayed on the rest of the layout. My friends NMRA members had a name for it: "a spaghetti bowl". It would have been impossible to cram another meter of rail in.

Old Shatterhand, actually. And Winnetou, who was supposedly an Apache, tho' AFAIK that's not an Apache name, nor could it be. May (pronounced "my", BTW) was said to have researched his settings carefully and thoroughly. He had a knack for presenting physical setting vividly, but in a few words; his characterisation is simplistic, and he suffered severely from Noble Savage syndrome. His narrative pace is swift, making his books real page turners. I read loads of them when I was a 10-12 years old, and can't remember a single one - just a few names.

cheers, wolf k.

That's it, Karl May! Been racking my brain for that. Very popular in Germany. Also reminds me of this sort of dialog:

UK person: "So where do you live in America?" Me: "Toledo, Ohio." UK person: "I have a cousin in Chicago, maybe you know him." ...

And some of his Henchpersons ...

That's another thought. I think that Americans tend to view the rail system as being more dense in Europe and so overlook the spaghetti aspects when it comes to the European portions.

I always wanted to Hench, but just when it looked most promising the economy went belly-up and all the really good supervillains stopped hiring.

Turns out that giant spaceship-mounted laser cannon are a poor long- term investment strategy: both the maintenance and the phased depreciation allowances will eat you alive.

Sigh.

~Pete

I always wanted to Hench, but just when it looked most promising the economy went belly-up and all the really good supervillains stopped hiring.

Turns out that giant spaceship-mounted laser cannon are a poor long- term investment strategy: both the maintenance and the phased depreciation allowances will eat you alive.

Sigh.

~Pete

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Well, there are still jobs overseas. Mugabe is rumored to be in the market for Henches.

Actually, Old Surehand was another character of May's - and the one Granger played in a movie or three.

Yep - pretty glaring, but what the hell, all those Indians looked alike to Karl.

As for "my", my wife speaks German and Schwabisch - I fumble a little of it.

He also managed to produce various geographically inept and usually not to subtly racist books set in African jungles, in the deserts of Noerth Africa and Arabia, etc. - turgid potboilers, just the sort of stuff that failed Austrian painter liked.

"LDosser" schreef in bericht news:hh9fvj$tp2$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org...

I do believe its not that bad anymore ( the geographic knowledge ) on both sides of the Atlantic, yes 50 years ago lots of europeans thought there were still cowboys and indians in the US living like in the John Wayne movies, at the same time lots of americans thought ( and still think ) that we ( I'm Dutch ) walk on wooden shoes, are all tulip farmers and our country has thousands of windmills, of course now all Dutch sit in coffeeshops every day blowing their brains out on cheap marihuana. As for the geographical knowledge, the US is concidered a country like any other and yes lots of europeans don't know that someone from LA is just as far from Chicago as a person from Helsinki is from Madrid. When my brother played hockey in Victoria Canada he was asked several times what it was like to live in a country where there was military on every corner of the street and having no rights, they thought the Netherlands was a communist country ( this was about 25 years ago ). Ask the average American what Denmark is and they answer , isnt that the capitol of Amsterdam or something like that. I do believe however that ( western)Europeans travel a lot more then Americans ( but correct me if I'm wrong ), of course for some of us travelling to another country is not so hard , I live 6 km from the German and 23 km from the Belgium boarder, but most of us have been to several countries whereas most americans travel outside of their own state a few times in their entire life. I've been to the US ( Florida, New York ) Canada ( Ontario, BC in May ) Sweden, Norway, Germany, Belgium , Luxembourg, Switserland, Austria, Hungaria, Chechia, Poland, France , Andorra, Spain, England, Schotland, Indonesia, Australia, Japan and the Emirates, none of these work related.

To get back on Topic, the whole Wunderland layout is non prototypical, its all a bit overdone , but if it weren't it would be somewhat dull. Its much more fun and interesting having a train go through the Grand Canyon then alongside or only to it. Wunderland is the largest layout in the world but probably least prototypical, I do believe that atracts lots of children to the hobby wich a prototypical layout doesnt do in such a great way.

Greetz Jan

Been told by German friends that I speak it like a turn of the century Prussian. No, not this century ...

'Course, what I had beaten into me was hoch Deutsch.

When I moved from Toledo to Oregon, Toledoans asked me about Indians, inside toilets and electricity. :(

OK, I knew about Old Surehand (not my favourite, and not a major character anyhow), but I didn't know that a) some of May's books were filmed, and b) that Granger played that role. Got any movie titles, perhaps?

When I was in 6th grade (in northern Indiana) we got a new mucic teacher who was from New York. We were amused that she referred to being in Indiana as "out west".

Perhaps if my compatriots were better traveled they's not be so stupid and sisceptible to myths about healthcare, or so resistant to public rail transport. Just let 'em live in Stuttgart a few months with an open mind and a strassenbahn pass . . .

Hi Wolf

Here is what IMDB has on Karl May,

, a lot of his novels were filmed , Old Shatterhand was played by Lex Barker . Correct me if I'm wrong Karl May lived between 1842 and 1912, wouldn't there still have been Indians and Cowboys in the sort of way he writes about them? Karl May never had been in the US so I forgive the faults he made and think his novels were quite nice to a 8-14 year old boy.

Greetz Jan

I've added some more NMRA member Ron Gager's photos - 47 photos to be precise - we did take a *lot* of photos on our trip.

Start at

Enjoy

Oh, sure, but his henchmen still use old-fashioned clubs and machetes (Ewww! Gross!), and working there would mean wasting all my expensive schooling in the field of giant spaceship-mounted laser cannon operation and maintenance.

The dreams of a lifetime crushed by a mere economic downturn...

~Pete

We still have cowboys and indians around the country. The difference is the cowboys try to act and talk like the originals, but their designer jeans and cell phones on their belt is a big tip-off that they are not! A ten gallon hat does not a cowboy make!

The indians are still around, although not in as great a number and definitely not as much of a threat. They are trying to gain their land and pride back from the white man by skinning them at their casino's! :) (That's a joke, son, so keep the war paint in the trunk.)

Spaghetti was discussed in the last set of posts and there is no doubt a fair amount of spaghetti, but the space given over to non-revenue items is astonishing. Streets, roads, major highways, villages, towns, castles (3 that I saw), ski slopes, a ski jump, a *Palace* complete with two hedge mazes, and on and on. I can only recall three sites associated with railroad freight and not too many passenger stations. Wonder if anyone has calculated the ratio of meters of track per square meter of railroad?