The Holiday Train Show Returns!

Posted in Holiday Train Show on November 8 2013, by Matt Newman

If you can imagine the distant jangle of a steam engine rounding the bend right now, you know just what time of year it is. And no, I don’t mean to suggest that the MTA is bringing back a line dedicated exclusively to old-timey trains. But for the next two months, we are. With fall well underway and the snows of winter likely headed in our direction soon, it’s once again time for that beloved yearly tradition of lights, locomotives, and masterful miniature architecture. Starting November 16, the Holiday Train Show® returns to the Garden!

Not that it’s a cakewalk assembling one of the largest train displays in the country. Far from it, in fact. Even now, our horticulturists and visiting model makers are scurrying about the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, preening plant beds, erecting familiar bridges, and making sure that every last one of our trains has enough track to make its all-important rounds. With this year’s exhibition featuring more trains than ever before, it’s worth double- and triple-checking the more than quarter mile of railway we’ll be using to accommodate all that traffic.

Among the new trains joining us this year, we’ve even got a G-scale Metro-North model soon to be zipping its way around a collection of Hudson River Valley mansions in the Conservatory’s Palm Dome pool.

The mansions themselves, as with each of our dozens of miniature New York landmarks, are assembled entirely from plant parts such as nuts, bark, leaves, and twigs. It sounds a little complicated, and it is, but the model makers aren’t afraid to share some of their secrets—you’ll find the whole building process detailed in The Artist’s Studio, showing step-by-step examples of how these charming buildings come together.

Beyond the Conservatory dome, we’re ramping up the holiday spirit with poetry readings, Holiday Adventures for kids in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, an all-new dining experience inspired by the historic streets of New York, and of course our fan-favorite Bar Car Nights. Because for as much as you do for your kids, you deserve some holiday pampering of your own now and then, right?

There’s so much more to come in the weeks to follow, so we’ll be keeping you up to date on all the happenings in the Conservatory and beyond. In the meantime, Holiday Train Show® tickets are already on sale, and it’s common for preferred dates to sell out completely. Register soon to make it easier on yourself!