Visitors of all ages get the feeling they are traveling across the country, evoking childhood memories of family vacations and nostalgia.

The expanded San Francisco area features depictions of Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower, a California mission style church, cable cars, Lombard Street (America's most crooked street) and the Golden Gate Bridge. The Pacific Northwest area features Mt. St. Helens and Seattle's waterfront, including Pike's Place Market and its signature red neon coffee cup sign. Completing the Seattle scene are Mt. Ranier, the Seattle Space Needle and the Hammering Man sculpture at the Seattle Art Museum. Other western landmarks include John Muir House, Napa Valley, Yosemite National Park, Hollywood, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Yellowstone National Park, Corn Palace and Mesa Verde National Park.

Midwestern landmarks include Abraham Lincoln's home, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio, Glencoe and Kenilworth train stations, Wrigley Field and Wrigleyville, a big top circus tent, Taliesin, a typical main street, a farm, Mt. Rushmore and Badlands National Park. Northeastern landmarks include Cape Cod, Fallingwater and the Statue of Liberty. Southeastern landmarks include the White House, Mt. Vernon, Blue Ridge Mountains, Kennedy Space Center, French Quarter of New Orleans and a Mississippi River paddle boat. Southwestern landmarks include Taliesin West, the Grand Canyon, Big Bend National Park and a Route 66 Diner. In all, there are more than 40 historic landmarks in the exhibition.

Train and garden enthusiasts, both young and old, return year after year for the delightful architecture, landscapes and realistic effects in the exhibition. The buildings have been intricately handcrafted with natural materials, including twigs, bark, leaves, acorns and pebbles. The landscape is made up of over 5,000 tiny trees, shrubs, groundcovers and flowering plants in 250 varieties. Tiny people and animals give the exhibit a storybook feel, while train sound effects and a working geyser capture visitors’ imaginations.

Paul Busse of Applied Imagination, Alexandria, Ky., designs and creates the Model Railroad Garden buildings. Busse’s fascination with trains began at age five when he received an American Flyer train. He graduated as a landscape architect in 1972, but his career was put on track in 1982 with his first public garden railway display at the Ohio State Fair. Since then, he has enjoyed a career in train garden design. Busse’s

exhibits are in numerous private and public spaces, including botanic gardens in New York and Philadelphia. Busse also created the Chicago Botanic Garden's indoor winter holiday exhibition, Wonderland Express.

The 7,500-square-foot Model Railroad Garden features 16 garden scale trains on 1,600 feet of track. Model Railroad Garden engineers Dave Rodelius and Larry Marchetti, along with a crew of assistants, work together to ensure trains run smoothly and on time. Volunteer greeters provide visitors with information about the trains and locations depicted in the garden. Train lines include Amtrak, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Freight, Burlington Route Freight, Chicago Northwestern Commuter, Good Humor Ice Cream Train, Ladybug Train, Napa Valley Passenger, Pikes Peak Cog Railroad, Rio Grande Freight, San Francisco Cable Car, Santa Fe Freight, Santa Fe Super Chief Passenger, Thomas the Tank Engine, Union Pacific and Wilson Brothers Circus Train.

A Model Railroad Garden activity handout is available for children and adults at the ticket depot at the entrance to the Model Railroad Garden. Full of facts, trivia questions and hidden items to locate, this guide provides informative fun for all visitors to the Model Railroad Garden. Many visitors come to gather ideas for their own backyard garden railway. Garden railroading is the fastest growing segment of hobby railroading, and more and more gardeners are “getting railroaded.” Today, the United States has as many as 25,000 garden railways. -- www.chicagobotanic.org