Polar Express returns to Medina offering train rides in popular holiday event

By Ginny Kropf, correspondent Posted 27 November 2023 at 7:10 am

Photos by Ginny Kropf: Santa and his elves walk through a yard full of lighted Christmas trees at the North Pole as the wait for the Polar Express from Medina Railroad Museum to arrive.

MEDINA – Along with the annual Olde Tyme Christmas celebration and Parade of Lights comes the Polar Express at Medina Railroad Museum.

The train of holiday movie fame has been doing excursions at Medina Railroad Museum for 12 years, annually attracting thousands of children and their families from across the region.

Santa and his elves pose by the clock tower at the North Pole set up near Gasport for riders of the Polar Express at Medina Railroad Museum.

This year’s Polar Express began Saturday in conjunction with the Olde Tyme Christmas day in Medina, and trains were all nearly sold out.

Preparations for the event begins weeks in advance, when museum staff and volunteers spent hours decorating the museum property from top to bottom and setting up an imaginary North Pole on the railroad near Gasport. There volunteers are dressed as Santa and elves and come out to greet the train when it stops to head back to Medina.

This year’s volunteers are students from the Iroquois Job Corps, accompanied by Job Corps community liaison Candace Pitts.

Museum director Dawn Winkler said the first weekend went off without a hitch, and the phone was still ringing with last-minute ticket sales on Sunday.

Children who ride the train receive hot chocolate, a train cutout cookie and souvenir bell, meet the hobo and Santa on the train and listen to a reading of the “Polar Express” as the train chugs down the tracks. Riders on first class receive their hot chocolate in a souvenir mug, while those in coach still get the same, but in a paper cup.

Many families come dressed in matching pajamas.

Polar Express will run Saturday and Sunday for the next three weekends and limited tickets of two together are still available. Tickets can be purchased through the museum’s website (click here).