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Santa Special Train in the UK

Posted by (Lake District, England) on

Just as NORAD has a special santa tracker every Christmas Eve, the UK train reporting system in the UK has a special train scheduled in the system every year.

It leaves North Pole depot, London at 2345 and travels around every one of the 2582 railway stations in the UK, arriving back at North Pole at 0015.

This year, and I quote, it is scheduled as being hauled by 9 reindeers and with a sleigh and scheduled at 225mph (to go round the system in 30 minutes it would need to do 10x that speed). It is also noted as "Loads presents and coal here" [at North Pole depot].

It is the one train every year which always runs on time!!

A bit of fun.

North Pole is a real depot, near London Paddington, originally for Eurostar when it ran out of Waterloo, now used by Great Western.

Posted by
3107 posts

I hope the reindeer don’t decide to go on strike!

Posted by
7380 posts

Does Santa qualify for a Senior discount?

Santa’s got to move fast at each stop, before getting back onboard for the next station. Instead of tall, fur-trimmed boots, with this train, is he wearing Train-ers?

Posted by
5841 posts

Groan at the train-er pun.

Santa has chartered the train, so doesn't need a ticket.

Posted by
7380 posts

Thanks for the extra Santa details, isn31c !

If you’re in the UK, you must be staying up very late … maybe you’ll see Santa in person!

So there’s a real North Pole in London. There’s also a North Pole near Colorado Springs, Colorado - a Christmas-themed amusement park. NORAD is based near there, too, so Santa’s got all this wrapped up as neatly as Christmas present! May your holidays be wonderful. Happy travels, too.

Posted by
7380 posts

Or you got up really, really early, isn31c . Either way, Cheers.

Posted by
5841 posts

I don't know if I was up early or late. I was streaming church services from the PNW at 2300, 0310 and 0630 UK time, exactly what I would have done (at saner times, - 8 hours) if I was there.

More or less what I used to be able to do (in person) in the UK many years ago when I was living in cities, not out in the country as now.

So a few hours of snatched sleep somewhere in between.

Posted by
5331 posts

... just after Paignton it stopped at "Naughty Kid" to drop off the coal.

Posted by
5841 posts

In the UK most of our preserved lines run Santa Specials- a very lucrative part of the business of each line, which always sell out fast.

Then Mince pie specials or variants on that idea during the 12 days of Christmas.

And on the main line there are various luxury dining specials- many steam hauled to various of the Christmas Market cities. Also, since Covid, Scotrail have run The Polar Express (themed on the movie) on short trips from Edinburgh. I saw it one day this year and it looked something very special, with their own waiting area and sound stage at Waverley.
They have had to shorten the route to fit in more trips, such is the demand.

The Wensleydale Railway and one of the lines in Devon also run Polar Express trains.

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