Holiday Train Show Pulls Into New York Botanical Garden

By: Roger Clark

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A sign of the holiday season pulls into the New York Botanical Garden.

The annual holiday train show is back for its 18th year at the Haupt Conservatory in the Bronx.

The scaled-down version of the city showcases some of the most notable landmarks around the five boroughs, built from natural materials like leaves, berries and twigs.

Among the attractions are Ellis Island, Yankee Stadium, and a reincarnation of the original Penn Station, which took 1,100 hours to build.

"It's just magical,” said Karen Daubmann, director of exhibitions at the garden. “It's twinkling lights, it's trains, who doesn't like trains? And getting to see all of New York's landmarks in scale models, built out of plant parts, it's just cool.”

“It's kind of the New York of your imagination,” said New York Botanical Garden Public Education Director Jennifer Josef. “It's got a number of historic and beautiful buildings that are no longer in existence in the city, and then there are a lot of classics that are still here, like Rockefeller Center for example. So I just love it, it's everything you could want New York City to be."

The models are built by a team in Kentucky.

“They think about the architectural details of each building, and they look for acorns and twigs and berries and leaves that make it look right,” Daubmann said.

Train engineer Brett Turner’s job is to keep the more than a dozen model trains running on the 1,000 feet of track.

"Just have to make sure that we come in here early enough in the morning to clean the tracks, make sure that any trains that got knocked off in the morning while they were watering the plants, get put back on the right way,” he said. “And at 10 o’ clock when those doors open, everybody can walk in here, and get the experience that they were expecting."

The train show opens to the public tomorrow, and runs through January 10.

For more information on the train show and other holiday activities at the New York Botanical Garden, go to nybg.org.