Chalk up a holiday assist for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Diesel.
When Santa’s steam locomotive plans were derailed, he found another ride to the BNSF Railway’s annual Christmas event in Vancouver.
Despite a change in plans, Santa Claus was able to keep his appointment Saturday with hundreds of little kids and hundreds of train buffs. And some people were in both groups.
While 5-year-old Haylie Ritch is a big-time Santa fan, “I like to go places on the train,” the Vancouver girl said.
“We’re train lovers,” explained her grandmother, Cheryl Fritzner. “We’re a little disappointed not to see the steam engine, but this is a wonderful event.”
Santa was ticketed for a ride to Vancouver on the old SP&S 700 oil-fired steam locomotive. But the 71-year-old Baldwin locomotive went off the tracks Friday night in a Portland rail yard.
Crews scrambled until 3 a.m. but finally had to go to an alternative, BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said: “We found a diesel locomotive.”
The diesel brought Santa Claus to Vancouver, where he did a two-hour meet-and-greet with about 1,100 people near the Amtrak station.
This was the railroad’s sixth annual public event in Vancouver. It was spun off from an annual company party, Melonas said. By the 10th year of that BNSF party, members of the public, out in the parking lot admiring the steam locomotive, outnumbered the BNSF employees attending the holiday event.
Families were able to climb aboard the locomotive for photographs Saturday morning.
As kids lined up for a chance to sit on Santa’s lap, holiday hospitality was available at tables loaded with cookies, cake, hot chocolate and coffee.
The North Pole resident wasn’t the only person at Saturday’s event who had put in significant miles. Some steam-train fans from as far as British Columbia and Montana showed up hoping to see the old locomotive, Melonas said.
The day was developing a theme for Tim and Erin Mock and their daughters, 4-year-old Ali and twins Kate and Jill, 1½. They started at a “Polar Express” breakfast at First Presbyterian Church. Then they drove to meet Santa at the Amtrak station, which happens to be familiar territory.
“We pick up their grandmother here when she takes the train from Tacoma,” Erin Mock said.
And the Vancouver family wasn’t done with the theme. Later in the day, Erin Mock said, “We will make a train out of cardboard boxes.”
