Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the Alberta-based freight railroad, unveiled its Holiday Train itinerary this week, including three stops in Chicagoland.
It will be one of many such festive trains wending the rails in the region. Perhaps the most famous are Metra’s version and the Chicago Transit Authority’s “L” train that carries Santa on a special open-air car, often in freezing temperatures.
Unlike those trains, you can’t ride CPKC’s Holiday Train. The merrily decorated train does have an unusual feature: Free live music performances at each stop.
After leaving Canada, the train will make its first U.S. stop in Franklin Park at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 23. It will stop at the Ruby Street railroad crossing, and the artists will be Magic! and MARIS.
The next morning, Nov. 24, the train will stop in Pingree Grove, in Kane County, at 9 a.m. The same artists will perform at the stop, at Railroad Street and Reinking Road.
The train will leave the Chicago area and make its next stop at noon in Byron, south of Rockford. It then will cross into Iowa, though Quad Cities residents can catch it in Davenport later that day.
After traveling as far south as Louisiana, the train will return to the Midwest with one more stop in Illinois. On Dec. 8, the train will stop in far north suburban Gurnee at 5:15 p.m. at Viking Middle School on Old Grand Avenue. The artist will be singer Allen Stone.
The train will roll into Wisconsin that evening and eventually make its final stop Dec. 20 in Saskatchewan. The railroad does holiday trains in Canada and Mexico as well.
CPKC works with groups like food banks along the U.S. route, and the railroad urges people to bring a food or cash donation to each stop.
It shares a charitable theme with the CTA’s legendary Holiday Train. As part of that program, CTA employees donate groceries according to the agency.
The CTA has yet to announce its plans for this year’s Holiday Train, but in past years it has run from late November until right before Christmas. The train usually makes its way along all “L” lines, and riders can board it just like a regular train.
Aside from having Santa ride outside, the CTA Holiday Train features agency employees dressed up as elves. The CTA also runs its Holiday Bus, where Santa often pops his head out of the bus from its ceiling emergency hatch.
Meanwhile, Metra will release tickets for its holiday trains in mid-November, spokesman Michael Gillis told the Tribune. Unlike the CTA train, riders must buy special tickets, which sell out in “minutes if not seconds,” he said.
And one more festive train could be in the works this year. The South Shore Line, which links Chicago and northwest Indiana, has said it plans to debut a holiday train.