Among the plants and trees at Holden Arboretum in Kirtland there is a new train exhibit constructed with Mother Nature.
Lumber, bark, seed pods, branches and moss are some of the various materials the artisans with Applied Imagination use to create their train displays for venues around the country. Their new display at Holden, the Pollinator Express, includes a dozen sculptures of lesser-known pollinators and is on view through early September.
“There are four tracks, almost 500 feet of track, lots of trestles, lots of tree branches... and our cedar mountains that we sculpt here on site,” said Jarrod McNertney, lead engineer for Applied Imagination based in Alexandria, Kentucky, about 12 miles south of Cincinnati.
Some of the pieces were built in advance in their workshop, including 12 sculptures of different pollinators placed around the tracks. The crew installed the display in just five days at Holden, crafting the mountains with tunnels for the trains to meander through and adding branches and supports to the whimsical design.
Workers used drills and staple guns to adhere branches to the side of the structure and cut pieces of wood to secure the design just right.
“It can be very difficult because sometimes you don't find the right piece, and so you have to sort of figure it out with what you have,” McNertney said. “It’s difficult but a lot of fun.”
G scale model trains weave under bridges made with ditch willow passing by not-as-well-known pollinators, such as the fruit bat, milkweed beetle and ruffled lemur.
“When a lot of people think of pollinators, they think of bees, you know, they probably think of butterflies,” said Beth Kelly, director of guest experience at Holden. “But there are actually a lot more different types of animals and insects that pollinate plants.”
There’s also a “poetic connection” between pollinators and trains as they both “move things,” Kelly said. “We love the trains, we love the pollinators and we think this will be a nice kind of marriage for people.”
Botanical artisans
It’s not the first time Holden has worked with Applied Imagination before on an exhibit. Prior displays in 2019 and 2007 were very popular, Kelly said.
The company works with a variety of gardens and arboretums, such as Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens in Illinois, Tucson Botanical Gardens and the New York Botanical Garden. The annual New York display includes sculptures of iconic city landmarks made of leaves, acorns and other natural materials.
McNertney has been working on train displays for 15 years. He studied sculpture at Northern Kentucky University and learned the art of these installations working with Applied Imagination, founded by Paul Busse in 1991.
“He was the mastermind of all this and was really into trains and wanted to make his own buildings to put in his displays," he said. “It all came from just a love for trains and a love for model making.”
