Grandma refused to sell her
house, so the miners dug around her.
So goes the yarn Bruce Zaccagnino
spun about this set in Northlandz,
one of the world’s largest model- train
museums. For its few visitors, the
mazy 52,000-square-foot Fleming-
ton, New Jersey, spot is a daunting
multi-hour walk. But for founder
Zaccagnino, it’s a shred of the rail-
way in his mind: “I’ll wake up—no
dreams, no forethought—and all of
a sudden, there’s this scene in front
of me,” he says. Opened in 1996, the
site is the off spring of his collection,
which began in his basement in ’72.
Its 8 miles of 1⁄87-scale track wind
through postcard midcentury vistas.
Maintaining Northlandz at this size is
a full-time job, but the would-be
engineer keeps laying new track.
Photographs by
BENEDICT REDGROVE
Te x t b y
ELEANOR CUMMINS
POPSCI.COM•SPRING 2019 95
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