Santa in Train Heaven

We have finished our second weekend of running the Polar Express Christmas trains, with Don playing Santa and myself as Mrs. Claus. Someone asked me what Mrs. Claus’ first name is, and I answered Daisy. So know you know, spread the word.

This is the biggest part of the fund raising for the museum, people pay $30 bucks a head for this. We will use the money for the various repairs that must be done, mostly keeping the rolling stock and the engines running, an ongoing process on older equipment. Some goes to fix the buildings too, and we are rearranging the parts department which is an incredible and enormous collection of bolts nuts and unfamiliar metal widgets. And of course, continuing the tedious restoration work on some of the really old cars. For anything that goes with trains, ending up here is truly heaven, where a core of dedicated railroad nuts drive, or repair the trains so people can ride them. If the trains could talk, they would be praying.

The script for the Polar Express starts with the people at the depot who park and hand out the reserved tickets to some 250 people, kids over 6, parents and grandparents. The stationmaster runs the gift shop and supervises. Earlier in the day, 300 cookies are fetched, donated by a nearby casino. Vast tubs of water are heated to make cocoa, and the trains are cleaned and stocked. For the 5:00 departure, the engine starts up about 3:30 and begins to get the 6 cars hooked up, and the lights and brakes organized. We have decorated the cars with lights and ornaments and the engine wears colored lights too. The crew consists of the engineer, a brakeman and two conductors. (Because we run our trains on a regular, real world rail line, all these people have to be federally certified to do this, including a written test ) The rest of the cast consists of droves of elves from the local high school and some grownups to supervise, two Santa and Mrs. Santa teams and a hobo bumming a ride on the train (This is based on the Children’s book, The Polar Express). One Santa team hides in the baggage car, back stage and in the middle of the train, and Don and I get to go up to the North Pole and meet the train.

There is carol singing and dispensing of cookies and cocoa and someone reads the Polar Express story on each car on the trip up. Meanwhile, Don and I drive up to a flatish place where a scene of the North Pole is mounted on two trailers, a workshop, Santa’s tiny house, and a sleigh with reindeer running up the roof. All this is lit up by a generator, and since it is dark, nothing is visible outside the train until it pulls up and slowly goes by this merry cheerful theater set with Don and I sitting in the sleigh waving while elves dance around and lights twinkle. Don does his “Ho Ho Ho” as the train goes by and kids and grown ups lean out the windows waving and shouting to Santa.

We climb down and board the train into the baggage car, and the train starts back. We have to double team the next part or we would never get done, one Santa goes north, the other south, and visits with each child, posing for pictures, and the usual, while I follow along and hand out silver sleigh bells.

I think the grown ups are more excited than the kids, the camera action is constant, and then at the end we pose in the last car, a fancy private car with staterooms, for yet more pictures. The kids put up with the photo ops with pretty good patience, although some of the littlest are flat out terrified of the man in red and white fur that everyone is making such a fuss about. They all seem to know what the bells are about, if you can hear them ring it means you believe in Santa, and they are thrilled to get their very own bell.

At the depot everyone gets off, waving goodbye and the grown ups all saying thank you thank you, I guess they know we are all volunteers. Actually a couple of people asked Don if he was a professional Santa, yes he really is that good!

The cast and the backstage crew ride the train back up to the car yard and we have to clean up and wash up and then eat our dinner.

I’ve never been a big fan of the piles of toys and Santa side of Christmas, it often looks like a festival of greed instead of light and joy. But watching Don with the children is pretty magical. He gives each child a moment or two of absolute attention, sometimes asking what they want for Christmas (they usually forget in the excitement) or high fiving them, or returning a hug. The kids are incandescent with wonder, and the parents are pretty excited too, scrambling to catch it on film. It is pure theater and wonderment on an old train, in the dark, out in the desert, a tiny mirror of the bright star in the east.