- What I really would like for you to do when you walk in these doors is to feel the magnificence and breadth of what nature can offer to you.

We have 45-foot-high ceilings, 12,000 square foot of greenhouse space, which makes us New England's largest indoor display garden.

- [Pamela] Lee Ann Freitas is director of the Botanical Center, a tropical oasis under glass right in Roger Williams Park in Providence.

- We have over 45 species of palm trees.

We probably have 50+ species of ferns, philodendrons.

- [Pamela] Plus exotic flowers such as birds of paradise and frangipani, also, orange and persimmon trees.

- Our mission is to connect people to nature and give them every opportunity to do that.

If you are here in the city of Providence and you live in a tenement home, you may not have that opportunity to go out in a backyard.

But here at the botanical center, we offer that backyard to you year round.

Even when it's frigidly cold outside, -10, you can come here and feel like you are in Maui or Hawaii.

- [Pamela] But even in the steamy climate, 70 degrees with high humidity, Christmas comes each season with a different decorating theme.

This year you'll find 1200 red and white poinsettias, eight Christmas trees, and something more, a train load of childhood wonder.

- Please.

(train chugging) (train bell dings) (train whistles) Santa's coming!

- The Botanical Center is adding some spell binding spark to their annual celebration.

Two G-scale model trains are on display, a traditional one around the Christmas tree in the main conservatory, and another encircling a replica of a New England ski mountain and village.

- You're going somewhere, right?

So here we'd like to think that you're going somewhere magical.

- This is the magic button, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Look at that.

(train whistle toots) Oh.

(laughs) - [Pamela] Sue Osberg is superintendent of the Little Rhody division of the National Model Railroad Association whose members engineered the layouts.

She says many toy train enthusiasts' fascination with locomotives began on a Christmas morning long ago.

- I was an only child so I had a doll one Christmas and a train around the Christmas tree that my dad and I played with.

- How did toy trains become connected to Christmas?

- Well, it seems that back in the early part of the last century, Lionel as a company decided it would be interesting to put out something festive.

And the idea of the train around the Christmas tree was born.

- [Narrator] Did you ever see a boy's eyes light up like a Christmas tree?

You will if he gets Lionel trains for Christmas.

(train chugging) - [Pamela] Originally, the Lionel Company of New York produced the first electric toy trains as an eye-catching display for department store windows.

Soon, they were at the top of wishlists for Santa Claus and the tradition was set in motion.

Even country singer Johnny Cash got on board.

♪ Trains and trucks are rolling ♪ ♪ Across this land and back ♪ - And here they are- - [Pamela] Little Rhody club member David Kiley was one of those kids who was gifted a train set.

- My dad bought me mine.

I still have it.

- [Pamela] Kiley says that was 72 years ago when he was just four years old.

Now, in the midst of this muggy greenhouse, Kiley has helped create a quintessential winter scene of the 1940s.

- They ran a train out of Providence in Boston to the New Hampshire ski slopes.

So we tried to pick up a little bit of that feeling.

The ski slope was built by one of our members.

It's made out styrofoam.

- [Pamela] There are skiers, ice skaters, plus a glass greenhouse, a wink to the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center.

- We have a Coke machine at the station.

On the train itself, we have a a chowder car, which- - A chowder car?

- Yeah.

It's my club car.

Done up in the colors of of the railroad and represents a kind of a tongue-in-cheek is 'cause that's how it's spelled, chowdah.

- [Pamela] And the setting in this conservatory is made to resemble a cozy ski lodge from yesteryear.

Trains and the alpine theme are intertwined with the plants that make their home here.

There's Norfolk pine, peace lilies, and koi fish donning their gay apparel.

There is a cactus garden, and green and mean as the Grinch himself, a carnivorous garden with insect-eating plants like Venus flytraps.

- This is the true horror story of plants.

- [Pamela] This exotic paradise has also been brushed with a bit of Hollywood stardust.

A group of friends conceived of this great public indoor Garden of Eden.

One was the late actor Anthony Quinn, who lived the last years of his life in Bristol.

- Anthony Quinn did have a love of plants.

He adored his crab apples and he also loved tropical plants.

They got together and helped to create this really, truly magical space - [Mom] You did it, Ava.

- We are hoping that people will come and visit, and families will come and make this part of their annual traditions and really become a sentimental place for them.

(train chugging)