In the summer of 2025, A-B Tech Art Instructor Derek Rhodarmer gave his 3D students an assignment to design a Polar Express -style train that would become the focal point of A-B Tech’s annual holiday party. When drawing up blueprints, the students used a real-life train as their guide, the Southern 722 Steam Locomotive, which was built in 1904 and active in Western NC for nearly five decades. The train operated between Asheville and Murphy on Southern Railway's Murphy branch until the 1950s, when it was replaced by diesel locomotives. It was later used by the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad for freight service until 1968.
Rhodarmer chose this train based on the prevalence of detailed online photos. Unbeknownst to him, the original Southern 722 was sitting in a trainyard just 35 miles from his Waynesville studio, waiting to be revitalized.
Over the course of the summer, Rhodarmer’s students came up with designs and a prototype. Then, through the fall, Rhodarmer worked in his art studio in Waynesville to bring their ideas to life. He used materials sourced from hardware stores, the local junkyard, and his own studio.
Rhodarmer, 56, is by all accounts a Renaissance man. He has art degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in journalism, photography, and painting. Equally versed in Old World and New, over the course of his five years at A-B Tech, he’s taught everything from painting and printmaking to videography and graphic design. He is also well-versed in furniture design and presently builds pieces for local retailers Four Corners Home and Mobilia.
The train provided a unique challenge. It needed to be portable and lightweight so that it could be transported from the studio to A-B Tech and back again, yet durable enough to last, as Rhodarmer doesn’t do “slapdash” design.
“Making it so that it could be assembled and disassembled in a modular fashion was satisfying.,” Rhodarmer said. “So was the research done to make it as authentic as possible.”
Measuring about 7 feet wide by 7 feet deep by 9 feet tall, his “Polar Express” is made of Masonite, plywood, and 2 by 4 lumber finished off with paint and sealants. It contains everything from Styrofoam crafting balls to hub caps taken from Rhodarmer’s 1949 Ford Tudor sedan, which were used to form the train’s front wheels. The engine’s crowning glory is an elegant iron cast bell, which can be rung by pulling a chain.
Rhodarmer estimates that it took about 40 hours to construct the train and cost about $600 in parts.
Once assembled, Rhodarmer carted the train to campus in his pickup truck for the holiday party in January, making three trips back and forth. It took about 20 minutes to assemble the train on the conference center stage. The holiday party lasted several hours, during which several brave employees ventured onto the stage to snap selfies beside it. As everyone ate lasagna and salad, the train blew steam from its smokestack, thanks to a fog machine Rhodarmer had planted inside. Its big moment came when A-B Tech President Gossette stepped up onto its wooden platform to deliver his holiday greeting and announce the winners of a Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Polar Express train ride raffle.
The following day, the train was disassembled and loaded back into Rhodarmer’s truck to return to the studio. It had lived out its purpose true to the artist’s original vision.
But Rhodarmer couldn’t bring himself to disassemble the train and recycle its parts. A couple of days later, on a whim, he called the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City to see if they might be interested in purchasing it. He learned that the tourist railway had bought the original Southern 722 decades ago and is currently restoring it to add to its fleet. The railroad agreed to purchase Rhodarmer’s train to place in the Bryson City station as a sneak preview of what’s to come.
It seems A-B Tech’s Southern 722 has reached its final destination. Since March, it has sat in the railyard not far from its "granddaddy”, welcoming throngs of spring tourists to a charming mountain town.