The Santa Train Delivers

“Riding the Santa Train let me reach out to others and reach out to my own past. It was incredible.’’ — Patty Loveless

The train — eight cars and a locomotive — slowed to a crawl and finally came to a halt. It is early morning and the scene is enveloped in a thick soup of fog and mist.

But smiles abound at the rear of the train because the man in red has arrived.

“Santa, Santa,’’ is the cry from babbling toddlers to wizened seniors, and all ages in between.

For more than a half-century, the beneficent visitor from the North Pole has kept his promise to the children—and the young at heart—of three states.

Yes, Virginia (and Kentucky and Tennessee), there is a Santa Claus. Each year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the jolly gent gives his reindeer a holiday while he hops a train from Pikeville, Ky., to Kingsport, Tenn., spreading good cheer along a corridor of Appalachia that has seen its share of hard times. In towns and crossings along the way, 15 tons of donated goodies—everything from gum and candy to specially baked loaves of bread to stuffed toys and books—are tossed out the back by Santa and his sometimes famous helpers to the waving throngs that line the route.

What began in 1943 as a thank-you gesture from the merchants of Kingsport to their customers in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky has become as traditional as giblet gravy and cranberry salad at the Thanksgiving meal.

“It’s something that everybody looks forward to. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the Santa train,’’ says Alma Revis, 77, of Elkhorn City, Ky.

Santa’s Special is now a joint venture of the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce and CSX Transportation, a Florida-based railroad that owns the line. The railroad provides the ride through the coalfields and mountain towns along the 110-mile section of track, while the chamber of commerce collects the immense cache of gifts distributed from the rear of the train. Chamber members also ride the route, helping Santa with the mammoth task of giving away all the goodies.

Some are Santa’s spotters, looking for kids that might be missed on the fringes. The idea is that no one goes away empty handed.

It takes a strong arm to throw out tons of toys. As country music singer Patty Loveless, a Pikeville, Ky., native, discovered during the 1999 run, being on the Santa train also “exercises’’ your heart.

“Riding the train was amazing … to see the faces of not just the kids, but the grown-ups. Many of them were little children who came to see Santa years ago,” she says. “It’s just an incredible feeling.’’

Her day on the North Pole Express brought back a childhood memory of when Santa waved at her from the back of a passing train, Loveless says.

“I was sure I imagined it,” she says. “After all, what would Santa be doing on the back of a train rolling through Kentucky, especially way back where we were?

“I didn’t tell anybody about that for years. I was afraid that they’d think I was seeing things. So you can imagine my surprise when the people with the Santa Train called us up last year to see if I wanted to ride.

“There is so much happiness in everyone’s smile when the train rolls by,’’ Loveless says.

“For that one day, it really is like Christmas. You realize how much people are all connected. You realize that all children love Christmas and everyone wishes to be happy and take care of their family. Riding the Santa Train let me reach out to others and reach out to my own past. It was incredible.’’

The previous year, country singer Travis Tritt was a guest toy thrower. The late Charles Kuralt, whose On the Road dispatches for CBS made his face familiar across the country, once reported on his Santa Train adventure.

In the weeks before the trip, the presents, which come in by the truckloads, are categorized and presorted in coded plastic containers. Volunteers know how much to give out at each stop so people waiting at the end of the journey aren’t shortchanged.

Those who live along the track know the train’s route by memory: Shelbiana to Levisa Junction, Marrowbone, and Elkhorn City in Kentucky. In Virginia, the train slows in Bartlick, Splashdam, Haysi, Clinchco, Dante (rhymes with ain’t), Carfax, and Speers Ferry, among others. In Tennessee, the train stops at Kingsport.

Following the path of least resistance, the train hugs the hillsides and mimics the winding course of green rivers. State highways are never far away, and automobile drivers blast a salute from their horns as their passengers wave wildly for Santa’s attention.

The train’s route bisects an area that has a history of economic uncertainty, often hit hard by coal-mining layoffs and shutdowns. For some, Santa’s rail ride struck an urgent chord.

“Coal mining was the only thing around here to do and if it was doing bad, then everybody was doing bad. If the Santa Train didn’t come, there would have been no Christmas at all for them,’’ Revis says.

Ethel Cooley, 72, of Dante, Va., remembers the first Santa train and subsequent annual trips through the mountains.

“Those were special days when Santa came through, especially after the coal mines closed down. People came out of the mountains from everywhere to see Santa,’’ she recalls.

Frank Brogden, 73, a retired public relations executive, has been the train’s Santa Claus for 17 years and says spectators come now for different reasons. “There has been an increase in affluence in the region. The focus is as much on the tradition of the train as the need for the gifts that are distributed,’’ he observes.

“It reminds people to be thankful for what they have in the good times.’’

For Cooley, Santa’s annual visit to her hometown is a way for her to share her past with the younger members of her family.

“I’ve been there to see the train many times. I take my little great-granddaughter to see it now,” she says. “I’m continuing the tradition.’’

Brogden, who rode the Santa Train as a helper before he was tapped to take over the red suit, calls the experience a “joy and honor.’’

“It’s one of the most satisfying things I’ve done in my life,’’ he says. “I have a real deep appreciation for Christmas and for sharing, and I have a certain amount of ham in me, I admit it. When you combine all three, well, you’ve got a Santa.’’

On the appointed Saturday, the day is a long one for Brogden, who, unlike his helpers, never gets a break from his post at the rear of the train. At nearly every crossing along the route, people are waiting.

“I stay put out there because you never know when you’re going to see a group of kids waiting on the side of the tracks. Sometimes you’ll be out in the middle of nowhere, no houses around, and there will be boys and girls waiting. You wonder where they come from,’’ Brogden says.

Santa’s favorite memory is an image from one of his earlier runs.

“I’m asked about that a lot, and I’ll tell you it did not involve a child. At one of the stops there was a young woman, 18 or 19, who was what we’d call today, mentally challenged.’’

That year 2-pound bags of cookies were among the gifts.

“I knew she wouldn’t get the bag if I tossed it, so I pointed her out and handed it back,’’ he says.

Brogden pauses. He’s told this story dozens of times, but it never fails to make his eyes mist over.

“The bag was passed from one person to the next, and when the cookies got to her, she smiled and hugged it … just that look of adoration. When you’re on the back of that train there’s a sea of faces, thousands of faces, but I will never forget her face.’’

He pauses again.

“There are no cynics on the back of the Santa Train.’’

Stephen Leon Alligood lives and writes in Tennessee and is a 1997 alumnus of the Santa Train, where he learned to throw teddy bears with some precision.

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