Canadian Railroads > Ontario Northland Railway Christmas Train

Hey Guys,

I drove up to North Bay to catch the 1st annual ONR Christmas Train. Weather was decent. Little skeptical of this train since the cancelled the Santa Claus express. ONR put on a good show at the station. Local school choirs and such. Only down side was the fact that they pulled out a box car that was covered in graffiti. You would figure with a world class paint shop on hand they would give it a quick coat of blue, but none the less cant wait till next years run. Here's a few pictures of the consist at the station in North Bay.

ONR 2011 Christmas Train
ON 1809 GP38-2
ONT 4003 66' Centre-Post Bulkhead Flatcar
ONT 7438 50' Newsprint Box Car (stage car)
ONT 123 Van, Caboose, Hack, crummy whatever you want to call it.

Take care and have a safe and merry Christmas!

Jason Jongen

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Here are the last 3

enjoy,

Jason Jongen

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Cool photos, thanks for posting. Surely they could have found a better looking boxcar around to use.

Rob Smith
Hamilton, ON

Cool! I'm glad somebody was able to get a closer look at the first Ontario Northland Christmas Train. Looks great, other than the graffiti on the boxcar as you mentioned.

Jim

NICE! I think the less is better works really well here and I like the wreath on the nose and Santa in the caboose, too! Way to go, ONR!

some may poo-poo the graffiti covered boxcar, but I for one am glad the railway did *any* of this--they didn't have to! After all, you can't measure "community goodwill" in a column on the balance sheets like you can operating ratio and profit level. This isn't something that contributes directly to the operation and profitablilty of the railway. It's just something nice for them to do to show the communities of Northern Ontario that they really do try!

Not poo pooing the ONR for using a graffiti covered box car, but public image is important and one could hardly read Ontario northland and see the chevrons on the one side. The Christmas train in a big step back from the Santa Claus express they have been doing in past years. I for one enjoyed the Christmas train it reminded me of the train set one would get under the Christmas tree. A loco, 2 cars and a van. looking forward to making the trip to North Bay next year. As for the graffiti I had a chance to ride the CP holiday train and that's a class act, you could see were touch up paint was used to hide the blemishes.

Jason

very nice pics thanks