North Pole

Those of us with children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc. will not have escaped, at some time or another, The Visit To Father Christmas. Whether you consider such an event as an opportunity for quality time with your junior family members, an excuse to escape Christmas shopping (just leave your credit card on the hall table, dear…) or a cynical display of commercialism at its worst, it would be churlish to say no. Not to say hazardous, as a humbug attitude towards piloting the car to the nearest representation of Santa’s Grotto will surely be noticed, and festive rations cut accordingly. All in all it is best to go along more-or-less willingly, and perhaps even enter into the spirit of the event, as who really wants to be a Scrooge at Christmas?

It is with these thoughts in mind, not least the one relating to financial exploitation of susceptible population segments, that the West Lancashire Light Railway prepares for Santa’s annual visit. It starts some months before, with north-bound emails to confirm FC’s availability on some of his busiest weekends of the year. Quite how his diary is always clear for those four days is either conclusive proof of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, evidence of how time slows down as a reindeer sleigh approaches the speed of light, or just magical, depending on your age and current belief system.

Next is a stock-take of what presents are already held, sorted by age (and whatever the politically-correct might think) most definitely by gender as well. Further supplies are ordered as required, taking due account of the time for them to arrive via the slow boat from China. They all then have to be wrapped, as whatever fairy tales you might have heard to the contrary, none of Santa’s Elves has such menial work written into his, her or its zero-hours contract. Wrapping is done one dark and rainy November night in the All Saints church hall, taking advantage of the extra space beyond that offered in our messroom. And incidentally, generating a fair amount of seasonal bonhomie as well. Who said eating a mince pie with several inches of Sellotape well stuck to the fingers isn’t fun?

A few days later there are sounds of hammers in the Engine Shed, as the southern end is partitioned off for a temporary Tudor Tearooms. We now have our very own meals on wheels service, a Froddy-built catering van capable of dispensing bacon rolls, beefburgers and other edible goodies. This gives much-needed extra circulation space for customers, although not necessarily for the servers, who have had to quickly master the knack of food preparation in a small cabin full of hot surfaces.

Other preparations include draping fairy lights on the carriages and various customer-facing fixed structures, taking a platform down to Delph station for passengers to queue on, and decking out the brake van as Santa’s lair, complete with working stove and mince pie warming stand. Repeated requests by the intended occupant for a continuously-topped-up mulled wine dispenser and built-in gentleman’s convenience have gone unfulfilled, on the basis that if you don’t have the former then the latter becomes unnecessary also. At this stage various sudden panics become optional, such as forgetting to book the mobile fairground organ, losing the box containing 2597 assorted balloons (with logo), discovering mice are nesting in the sweetie tins, etc. And speaking of balloons, who would have thought the microwave oven was high on the list of Things That Must Be Found to ensure successful inflation?

It would be nice to think that for once global warming would do the decent thing and take Christmas off, so we could enjoy real crisp and even snow as the first day of business dawns. However this has happened only once in recent memory, and it seems we will just have to get used to the December rain, wind and (sometimes) bright sunshine. For the two train crews it is an early start, with the first service due a full hour earlier than the normal timetable. For the author, one of retirement’s great benefits is the almost-every-day lie-in, so it comes as a considerable shock to discover that 0630 hours not only still exists in the temporal universe but alarm clocks can still be set to go off that early. In fact Santa’s alarm hasn’t always gone off, resulting in unwitting adoption of an only-just-in-time policy on the part of the Bearded One. You would have thought that a simple manipulation of the space-time continuum would have rendered such antics superfluous, but perhaps we credit too much time-bending ability to one who spends all his time amongst frozen tundra and grumpy reindeer.

Then the passengers start to arrive, and for those who have been awarded the all-day parking contract the hand-waving and finger-pointing begins in earnest. The balloon and sweetie issuers take their stock out to the rapidly-filling carriages, the catering crew fire up the bacon pans, and mechanically-generated carols waft over the airwaves. Another recent innovation is on-line booking, which simplifies the job of the ticket-office staff considerably, as tickets can be prepared in advance and less cash changes hands. Also it may well encourage impulse-buying, as bookings have been at a record level, with trains filled to maximum capacity (that’s Santa’s capacity, not the train’s). At times the loadings require some skilful crowd-management on the thronged platform, to minimise the changeover times and try to keep up with the timetable. Having an auxiliary Guard Elf to help get passengers seated has become a necessity rather than a luxury, and in the interests of a timely departure the on-board ticket check has largely disappeared.

Talking of passengers, it is of course they who make all the effort worthwhile, as reality is put on hold for a few hours and excited children and cheerful adults enter into the spirit of the affair. The chill damp air encourages not only consumption of warming food and drink but also production of clouds of steam from chimneys and cylinder cocks, to add to the festive atmosphere. For many young ones this is their first experience of a real steam train, and the crews do their best to make it a memorable one. Quite how many photos are taken by Santa’s little (and not so little) helpers on behalf of parents keen for a family portrait in front of loco and/or grotto, is not recorded. But if Facebook seemed a little slow on the days in question you now know why.