Little engines that can: Zagreb's model train museum

The Backo Mini Express Museum is the largest of its kind in southeastern Europe

Published: June 15, 2020 13:39 AFP and compiled by Balaram Menon, Digital Content Editor

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Visitors looks at a model train layouts, as part of the collections at the Backo Mini Train museum in Zagreb. Soaring over mountain gorges, past snowy ski slopes and into bustling stations, the trains in Antun Urbic's minuscule landscape enthrall visitors to his model rail museum in Zagreb. Image Credit: AFP

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The Backo Mini Express Museum, the largest of its kind in southeastern Europe, boasts more than a kilometre of tiny tracks traversing picturesque rural villages and city squares wrought in extraordinary detail. Image Credit: AFP

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More than 2,500 figurines including mountaineers, wedding guests, police, construction workers and commuters populate the scenes. Image Credit: AFP

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Antun Urbic (above), who opened the museum in 2015, fell in love with trains 60 years ago when his father gave him a model set. "It was the only toy that moved by itself," said the 66-year-old who goes by the nickname Backo. Image Credit: AFP

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Urbic started building sets in the attic of his Zagreb home before moving to a bigger space where he invited friends over to model with him. Image Credit: AFP

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"It began as a hobby," said Urbic. After spending four years piecing together a large-scale model, he opened the museum to the public. Image Credit: AFP

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Since then, the site has attracted 25,000 people a year, including model train enthusiasts from the United States, Australia and India. Image Credit: AFP

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The museum reopened in May after closing for nearly three months under Croatia's coronavirus lockdown. Image Credit: AFP

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"We could hardly wait to come here again," said Davorin Bozic, a regular accompanied by his three enthusiastic children. Image Credit: AFP

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Eight-year-old Jan Zelic's favourite detail is in a cemetery where a hand sticks out from a grave. "It's really fun," he said. Image Credit: AFP

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His father Sasa, a 38-year-old economist, praised the "precise mechanics and imagination needed to construct all this. I was particularly impressed with the ski slope." Image Credit: AFP

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The scene features miniature skiers zig-zagging down a slalom run inspired by the one on nearby Medvednica, which hosts the men's and women's World Cup. Image Credit: AFP

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It is the only model museum in Europe with skiers actually descending a mountainside instead of being glued to the slopes, according to Urbic. Image Credit: AFP

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Among them are two figurines of Croatian skiing stars - siblings Ivica and Janica Kostelic - now retired. The latter is depicted skiing with only one pole as she famously did after dropping the other during a 2006 World Cup race when she won bronze. Image Credit: AFP

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"Everyone perceives this as a children's game but it is far from that," said Urbic's associate Zvonko Cebalo. "There is a concentration of knowledge - electronic, electric, IT, robotic." Image Credit: AFP

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A model train layout at the Backo Mini Train museum in Zagreb. Image Credit: AFP

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Antun Urbic, known as Backo, as he poses in the control room of his mini train museum in Zagreb. Image Credit: AFP

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