All Aboard! Santa's Santa Fe Christmas Rolls Into Town

Christmas trees, wintry village landscapes and the whir of model trains mixed with the sound of children’s laughter on Saturday night as the Railway Museum of San Angelo hosted night two of their month-long Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas.

The 18th annual event kicked off on Friday, packed with history, arts and crafts, Christmas stories, and a visit from Santa himself. With lights and decorations gradually brightening up pockets of the city in holiday cheer, model trains at the foot of trees are beginning to enjoy their season.

“I think toy trains and Christmas have always gone together,” says David Wood, President of the Railway Museum of San Angelo, “for little boys especially.”

Eighteen years ago, the idea for the first Santa Fe Christmas was born out of this association, and is still chugging along each year, attracting new visitors and offering insight into the storied history of San Angelo’s past.

“I grew up here in San Angelo,” said Hope Rodriguez as she and her family drifted through rooms with massive tabletop train sets. “This is my first time [at the museum], it is awesome.”

Rodriquez had just caught the middle of a detailed story surrounding a rail line from Barnhart to Copper Canyon in Mexico. Detailed scenery depicting the landscape of the track’s long route stood spread out on tables abutting three walls in the small square room.

“Listening to him (a volunteer) talk about all of this—we never knew there was a Copper Canyon,” she said. “Definitely going to have to bring the other grandkids,” Rodriguez said as the volunteer concluded the tale full of cross-border politics, business, bankruptcy and Pancho Villa.

As patrons drifted through the rooms, eyeing the trains and depot antiquities, cameras flashed in confirmation: there’s a certain fascination surrounding the old boxy locomotives, even if you can’t exactly explain why.

“I always get asked that,” Wood says. “[I think] it stays with people…A lot of my generation remember riding on them. My grandmother used to ride down here and we’d pick her up at the station.”

Passenger trains, like the ones that ran through San Angelo, have long since left the area, thus adding to the mystery and allure of the age-old transportation method. But David Wood traces his train affection back to a time when they were still popular.

Wood says he remembers being pulled down to the depot starting at age three by his grandfather in a little red wagon. “[He] taught me how to count train cars,” Wood said. “I was always happy when the caboose came so I could stop counting.”

With their Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas event, the Railway Museum hopes to inspire that same wonder in children today, while teaching them a bit about the past. Kids make sparkling name plates on felt with glitter, then go upstairs for Christmas stories read by prominent citizens in the community.

On Saturday, Police Chief Tim Vasquez was up for a round of storytelling, this time from his favorite book, “The Night Before Christmas.”

“I’ve been doing this every year since I became Chief,” Vasquez said. “It’s become such a Christmas tradition for me…I love being with children.” Vasquez has also brought his children over the years and sees the readings at the train station as an opportunity to share a holiday tradition with the community off-duty.

The building at 703 S Chadbourne was built in 1910, the first two-story building in San Angelo at the time, and the city’s second largest. The building once served as the corporate headquarters for the Texas Corporation of the Kansas City Mexico and Orient Railway and was the largest structure on the KCM&O line.

Back in the early days, the Santa Fe train station was a bustling center of city activity, not only for passenger transportation—including overnight hauls to Houston and Dallas—but for commercial shipments as well.

“If you ordered a refrigerator from Sears back in the 1920s, it probably came through here,” said San Angelo Railway Museum Volunteer Jim Harte.

Harte says passenger service ceased in 1959, although the depot was used for freight shipments for a period thereafter. By 1985, all freight and passenger services had been discontinued.

Between 1989 and 1993, a group led by Allen Johnson talked the superintendent for the district into having the building donated to the group, which saved the building from destruction and laid foundation for the museum the depot is today.

The historic Orient-Santa Fe Passenger and Freight Depot buildings are saved from destruction when a group led by Allen Johnson talks the District superintendent into having Santa Fe donate the building to the group.

The Railway Museum of San Angelo is run entirely by volunteers and is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors during the day may tour the large trains and the museum, including the model train exhibits and the old parcel room, where numerous artifacts are on display. Santa is busy in his workshop during the afternoons and only makes visits in the evenings.

Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas runs every Friday and Saturday through Dec. 28 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., with storytelling at 7 p.m. Admission is $3 for children, $5 for adults, and all proceeds go to fund operational expenses of the museum throughout the year. 

More on San Angelo's locomotive history can be found on the Railway Museum's website.