On Saturday, April 23, 2011 I snuck away from my soap selling duties to attend the attempt by the model railroaders from the Wilmington Rail Road Museum to break the record for the world’s longest model train at Wilmington’s new Convention Center.
A train consisting of 31 locomotives and 1563 cars was placed on 1000 feet of track in the Convention Center’s main exhibit hall. At about 925.55 feet long, this train traveled continuously for 750 feet to surpass the record set by Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany in 2008. The World Record Run was witnessed and documented in order to be included among other achievements listed by Guinness World Records.
A special feature of this event allowed individuals and businesses to sponsor a limited edition locomotive, custom decorated boxcar, or segment of track and to become a part of this history-making event. Thanks to my friend Mary Martha, I was able to have a special boxcar with my dad’s name on it. I debated long and hard on what I should say. I finally decided on his name and NW (the railroad he started with, although it was known as Norfolk Southern Railway by his retirement) and the dates he was a railroader (1952 – 1989).
- My Dad’s Boxcar
According to their website, the model railroaders invested about 5000 hours of volunteer time for research, material acquisition, assembly, testing and calibration, layout fabrication, transportation and setup, monitoring and adjusting the train, and power design and distribution.
This was a fun event to attend. Just for the record, I felt just as excited as the little kids you hear in the video. I just was slightly better at standing quiet and watching 🙂 I am very glad me and my dad were able to be a small part of this world record event.
Leave a Reply