The Cellar - April 12, 2013: Chocolate Train

Some stay dry and others feel the pain...

Attachment 43623

New Guinness Record Category. Largest Chocolate Structure.

Quote:

The sculpture, on display at the busy Brussels South station, is 112-feet (34.05 meters) long and weighs over 2,755 pounds (1250 kilos).

Maltese chocolate artist Andrew Farrugia spent over 700 hours constructing the masterpiece.

He said he came up with the idea of the train last year after visiting the Belgian Chocolate Festival in Bruge: "I had this idea for a while, and I said what do you think if we do this realization of a long chocolate train, you know, because a train you can make it as long as you like.

"Actually it was going to be much smaller than it was, but I kept on adding another wagon, and another wagon, and it's the size it is today."

Farrugia had previously built a smaller train of 12 feet for an event in Malta, which he said gave him insight about how to build this much larger version.

There are two parts to the train. The first seven wagons are modeled after the new Belgian trains, and the rest of the train is modeled after the old train wagons, including a wagon with a bar and restaurant on board.

Three days before the event, Farrugia transported the chocolate train by truck in 25 wooden boxes from Malta to Belgium.

Farrugia said the train incurred considerable damage during the drive and several of the train's walls had completely collapsed. Luckily, with hard work and little sleep, the chocolate artist was able to fix all the damages before presenting the train to the public on Monday.

After measuring the length of the train and confirming no material other than chocolate was used, officials from the Guinness Book of World Records added a new category to the collection of world records and declared the train to be the longest chocolate structure in the world.