Riding the rails

      The Holiday Train

One of my earliest memories is riding the upper deck of a passenger train from San Bruno, California to San Francisco. I must have been about 6 or 7. Mom put me on train in San Bruno and my Aunt Betty picked me up at the end of the line in San Francisco. I don’t remember for sure, but I think one or two of my little sisters came along. I mostly remember how grown up I felt sitting in the fancy seat, and watching the hills fly by.

I still like train travel. It’s more  comfortable than flying, more elegant than a bus, and more relaxing than driving. Over the years since that first experience with trains I’ve had a many memorable train trips. I have taken the bullet train in Japan, and the Train de Gran Vitesse in France, a Jacobite steam train in Scotland, and Amtrak in the United States.

It’s a good thing I like trains, because the tracks in Winona run through my backyard.  When my kids were little, we made a game of watching the trains (from a safe distance). To this day, freight trains clank and screech as they park just beyond bedroom window. They shake the house and rattle the windows as they rumble past.

Trains are a part of life in Winona, a town divided by train tracks. Getting from one place to another almost always involves crossing the tracks. That makes for a good excuse for being late, but a lot of people (myself included) get annoyed when they have to wait for a train.

The one train no one minds waiting for is the Canadian-Pacific Holiday Train. For the past nineteen years, this fabulous train has criss-crossed the US and Canada bringing holiday cheer as they raise support for local food banks. Over the years, they have raised C$13 million and four million pounds of food for food banks across North America.  It’s a tradition in Winona I’ve grown to love.

This year, the train was due at 4:00 on December 8. Since the weather was so nice, I decided to walk to the station, only about a mile from my house. Families lined the tracks watching for the train. Children craned their necks and (mostly) minded their parents to stay off the tracks.

At last the train, ablaze with holiday lights, roared into the station, where hundreds of Winonans had gathered, munching cookies and sipping hot chocolate.  The doors of the freight car rolled open and the band began to play. The audience clapped mittened hands and stomped boots on frozen ground as we sang along to Jingle Bells, Up on a House Top and other Christmas favorites. Fog rolled from the train car-turned stage and red and green laser lights flashed.  Some years the fog comes from the singers’ breath and the musicians have had to play with frozen fingers, but this year we enjoyed a balmy 34 degrees. For 15 minutes we rocked-and-rolled Minnesota style. Then the band waved goodbye, the freight doors shut and the train chugged out of town.  

Volunteers gathered up the food and money donations and cleared away the hot chocolate and cookies. Slowly the crowd dispersed, the streets emptied and the dark, quiet of a December night returned.

Until the next train rolls through!