Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard
Exclusive to subscribersYou can now gift articles

Morris Arboretum’s Holiday Garden Railway is brought to life by grandfather and grandson trainmasters

For three years, the grandfather and grandson train duo have transformed the garden railway into a magical, miniature, Philly winter wonderland.

Josh Faia (right) and his grandfather, Bruce Morrell, unpack a Union Pacific Big Boy model train as they set up the Holiday Garden Railway at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens.
Josh Faia (right) and his grandfather, Bruce Morrell, unpack a Union Pacific Big Boy model train as they set up the Holiday Garden Railway at the Morris Arboretum & Gardens.Read moreMonica Herndon / Staff Photographer

When Morris Arboretum & Gardens hired a helper for their longtime trainmaster three years ago, they did not have to look far. The trainmaster’s grandson was the obvious choice. After all, he had taught him all he knew.

All year, Bruce Morrell, 77, and Josh Faia, 26, work side by side, bringing the arboretum’s celebrated Garden Railway to life. This is the time of year that the grandfather and grandson train duo transform the railway into something else: a magical, miniature, Philly winter wonderland of chugging choo-choos, clanging trolleys, and replicas of landmarks, like Independence Hall and the Art Museum, made from twigs, pine cones, acorns, and walnut shells, and set aglow in lights.

For months before the Holiday Garden Railway’s Nov. 24 opening, the trainmaster and trainmaster-in-training spent hours testing locomotives and tending to nearly 2,000 feet of track and all its twists, loops, bridges, and tunnels.

Together, they create a world where whimsical trains, like the Santa Express and the swan train (”Kids love the swan,” Faia said), zip past Union Pacific Big Boys and Amtrak express trains.

Earlier this year, as part of its 90th anniversary celebration — and the 25th year of its railway — the arboretum laid 300 new feet of track in the garden, growing the railway to a full third of a mile. In all, 11 trains and five trolleys crisscross the enchanting holiday display, which includes 50 model structures (and even a little Rocky statue made of bark).

“It’s become a generational feature for families and a tradition in people’s lives,” said Vince Marrocco, director of horticulture for the arboretum.

And perhaps no one has played a bigger part in that tradition than Morrell, he said.

“Bruce is the guy who keeps the wheels greased and trains running — and now he’s passing that tradition onto his grandson,” he said. “The two of them are quite the team.”

A love of trains

Morrell, with his whiskers and squint, has the look of an old-timey train driver (”That was my dream,” he said). His love of locomotives began while he was a boy growing up in Fox Chase. On Sundays, his father drove him and his brother to railroad stations to watch Pennsylvania Railroad trains thunder past — and to glimpse the speedy Crusader, a stainless steel express train that ran from Reading Terminal to Jersey City.

“The belching smoke, the loud noises, the thunder as it went by — that was the allure of trains,” he said.

In turn, Morrell took his children out chasing trains — and then his grandchildren. Faia grew up in Lansdale and remembers plowing into his grandfather’s car with his brother to clock Amtrak trains with a radar gun.

“You’d start to hear the rail vibrating, and you just knew something fast was coming,” Faia said.

Morrell began volunteering at the Garden Railway when he retired from his plumbing business about 20 years ago. It wasn’t long before the arboretum hired him to work on their seasonal railway displays.

He took his grandchildren with him to the arboretum, too.

“When we were old enough, he bought us our own model trains, which we could bring along,” Faia said.

After graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 2020, Faia, who plays trumpet, began spending more time at the railway with his grandfather. He jumped at the chance to work in the railway garden, he said.

“I feel like I am conveying what love I have about trains to people,” he said.

The conductor’s hat

The family train men have developed their rhythms and routines. Faia spends most of his time in the garden troubleshooting problems like stubborn locomotives or disconnected wires. Morrell fixes them in the garden’s workshop. When they butt heads, Faia knows not to argue. While they may wear the same train track suspenders, only one gets to wear the conductor’s cap hanging in the train shed.

“I haven’t earned that yet,” Faia said. “Maybe soon.”

Together, they run the trains in a constant loop — while the five trolleys reverse back and forth on their own lines. All the trains and trolleys are controlled by a single remote control.

They both said they work the railway for the same reasons: the joy and wonder they see on the faces of children, and parents — and the joy they take in working together.

“There’s nothing like it,” Faia said, of working the holiday trains with his grandfather. “It is something special.”

With that, the trainmaster could agree.