I just came from the most fantastic place to take a child if they love trains. It’s called Northlandz and it’s basically a miniature railway trains system  that runs along the most beautiful scenes of America in a way never before  thought possible.

The trains run along miles and miles of railroad track. The most wonderful thing about this place is that everything was constructed by one man, Bruce Williams. It started out has a hobby for him in his basement, but it eventually took over his entire house, so he eventually bought some land just north of Flemington, New Jersey with his wife in 1990, and moved everything there and called it Northlandz.

  “Our problem is telling the world what the heck we got here”, says Bruce Williams, creator of Flemington’s newest attraction. It is indeed difficult to describe the jaw-dropping feeling you get when you take this effortless trip into the realm of unfettered imagination along the mile-long one way labyrinth that is Northlandz.

Somehow, along the way, most of us lose the fantastic power of childhood that entitles us to “live” inside a dollhouse, model airplane or a train set. We graduate from the realm of tree forts and clubhouses to the big make-believe ballroom of adulthood, where we choose our corners and our partners. There is nothing childish about Northlanz, although children will equal you in your amazement at this incredible endeavor. A dynamic moving sculpture of Americana, Northlanz is an environment where you can get lost in a universe of ideas.

“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” says Williams gesturing this way and that as we walk the perimeter of canyons full of busy villages, shining cities, towns glued to the sides of mountains overlooking cavernous mines, all linked together by roads and rails built with attention to the most minute detail. Everywhere there are bridges crossing precariously from here to there, from past to future. We pass a golf course, a state fair with a huge roller coaster, a log mill, a monastery, Swiss pasture land, a plane crash, and the world’s only toothpick farm poised over rivers that have cut through abysmal chasms. Ridiculously indescribable.

Then there are the trains- 135 miniature trains, starting, stopping, disappearing through tunnels, winding their way through 3,000 scale foot mountains, 38 foot long bridges, thousands of houses, millions of trees. The walk through Northlanz actually takes you up three levels so that you see villages at eye level; through little windows at people inside the houses; and again from far above to appreciate the grand synchronically of movement in the trains. Each time you look, on and on over the deep, deep ravines you will see something new.

Along the outer edge of the trek are 107 kiosks which combine to make a full-blown art gallery. And you will see the world’s largest dollhouse. Each hour the Wurlitzer pipe organ plays from the Northlandz theater. Outside the main building you may also enjoy a 1/3 scale railway.

Northlandz occupies a large building on Route 202 S. at River Road just north of Flemington. The superstructure of the present exhibit required enough wood to complete over 40 mid-sized homes. The exhibit is the culmination of 25 years of planning and construction by Mr. Williams.

delete reply sanssouciblogs wrote on Dec 28, ’07 Looks fantastic! We had something like this on LI that we visited when Evan was little. How could you not love it? What a neat feat for a guy.

edit delete reply lauritasita wrote on Dec 28, ’07 You should see all the kids that go there !!! I saw mostly small children, but kids of all ages love it and they go back every year. The place is HUGE !!! You need to take your time walking through because there is so much detail that Bruce Williams put in. It’s over a mile long !