Robyn Hitchcock was on to something when he not-so-famously sang, “I often dream of trains.” The era of train travel is enveloped in a certain nostalgic magic for most of us, now more than ever as issues of energy, community, and sustainability become matters of crucial public debate. When the Vancouver Design Nerds and eatART roll out their Gramorail at this year’s 10th annual New Forms Festival (running Friday [September 10] to September 18 at W2 Storyeum), they’re hoping to fold this combination of romance and relevance into a piece of kinetic sculpture that gets people thinking about Vancouver’s transportation history. And they’ve come up with a pretty wicked way of doing it.

“It’s an exhibition that I think children would really enjoy,” Malcolm Levy, curator of the multimedia art show at the festival of digital culture, says over the phone from his Vancouver home. “The thing I really love about the Design Nerds and eatART is that they create really enjoyable works that people get right away. I think having that element of play within the installations is really important, and they do it in a manner that lets you enjoy the work first and then realize the message after.”

The Gramorail is a fully functioning, pedal-powered, four-person locomotive built from scrap, coupled to a second car described by Design Nerd Natalie Ethier as “a big couch on wheels”. Basically a large cabinet that’s padded with tapestry on the outside and has a carpeted interior that comfortably seats eight people, the “Gramophonica”—as it’s known to the Design Nerds—has an enormous fabric gramophone horn.

The Nerds are still debating what exactly they want to run through that big horn. Ethier feels that some ’20s or ’30s jazz from a human-powered turntable would be appropriate, but it’s a decision that the team will no doubt tackle at one of its famous Nerd Jams, where the all-volunteer collective of artists, architects, industrial designers, engineers, and other professionals has been gathering to brainstorm whimsical acts of urban transformation since the group began in 2004. If you’ve ever noticed the old Pontiac that’s been converted into a planter on the otherwise life-sucking corner of Clark Drive and East Broadway, then you’ve been touched by the Design Nerds.

Ethier joined the informal group last year, around the time when the Nerds originally jammed out the idea of the Gramorail. “I was new to the city,” says the geographer and former Torontonian. “So I was instantly thrown into this wonderful, interesting group of people.” Breaking into teams, the Nerds set about designing and building the two separate cars while Ethier organized a couple of successful fundraising events to underwrite the project.

Eventually, the robot-obsessed whiz kids of eatART lent their workspace to the Nerds, along with their expertise in welding and construction. You might have seen eatART’s famous eight-legged vehicle, the Mondo Spider, hulking across the lawn at the Vancouver Art Gallery during last year’s Energy Awareness Art Party (put on by eatART), or at the Pemberton Festival the summer before that. “I don’t think this would have happened without eatART,” says Chris Goodchild, a mechanical engineer who’s been working on the Gramorail’s braking system. “They were phenomenal in teaching people the tools to do this.”

Goodchild feels that as “zany” as it is, the Gramorail speaks directly to the questions about energy consumption that he faces every day in his work in the green-building industry. “Pedal power is one of the most ingenious applications of human power,” he says. “Being able to pedal such a large structure gives you an idea of how much energy is actually required to move something this size, and I think that’s kinda lost when you have the internal-combustion and all these other engines that can take a five-ton truck up a road no problem.”

Goodchild adds that increasing awareness of Vancouver’s existing rail lines is no bad thing. Following a debut at Burning Man during the first week of September and after its stint on some display rails at W2 Storyeum for the New Forms Festival, the Design Nerds plan to mount the Gramorail onto the real thing and parade it down the Arbutus corridor—or part of it, at least. “It hasn’t been used for so long that guerrilla gardening groups have gone out there and built beautiful gardens around it,” Goodchild says, laughing. “The last thing you wanna do is go run your gramophone right through somebody’s garden.”