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Santa came to town by train!
Santa, Mrs. Claus and the Grinch arrived on a great big train at the Railway Museum of San Angelo Dec. 13 and brought joy to many people.
We celebrated the season with trains, food, fun, great gifts, Santa, Mrs. Claus and the Grinch at the Railway Museum of San Angelo—where history and holiday ride the rails together at 703 S. Chadbourne, San Angelo, www.sanangelorailway.org or Facebook RailwayMuseumofSanAngelo.
Most photos by Bruce R. Partain & Chris Roque.
Our Santa crew was spectacular. Every child got a chance to feel that they were loved and heard.
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First, there was our former president Suzanna and her wonderful Santa, Daniel Valenzuela.
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At noon, Jeremy Bartz and Gabriela Rodriguez brought excitement and laughter to the Santa photo booth.
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Then at 2 p.m., Chuck and Sar Ah Horton were the sweet Claus couple, helped by Cole and Clara, the world’s cutest elves.
And WHO could forget the Grinch? Yuki Kuniyuki was energetic and exciting as the green guy. The role fits him perfectly, maybe because he even owns his own Grinch costume! In the afternoon, Teresa Covey danced out onto the photo platform. She was a true newcomer to the world of the Grinch, but she bounded right into the role.
Chris Roque, our president/lawman/priest, did the very hard work of getting our contract set up with the City, got Hardeman Pass Street closed, arranged for the TCO sheriff’s office deputies to work the crowds, and he scheduled, monitored and coordinated their work. He met with Texas Pacifico’s Safety Director Johnny Reyes to facilitate Santa coming in on the Texas Pacifico locomotive. When Chris finally took off his sheriff’s deputy equipment, he helped haul all the decorations and chairs back inside the museum. He's shown here with the Grinch (Teresa Covey) and Deputies Lonnie Griffith and Travis Dudley.
Tommy Robinson is the train conductor deluxe. He worked on the new little train donated by the town of Robert Lee and had to buy three new tires for it. He fixed it so that it could hitch to our existing train. Tommy arranged to get the golf cart donated so that it could be driven in the Concho Christmas Parade. The day before our big event, he had to move the train out of the storage yard because a crew was power washing and painting there. On our big day, he went and put the train all together and drove it for over SIX hours without stopping so every child who wanted a ride could have one. In addition he and his sister Helen Johnson brought a lot of their Christmas decorations and decked the museum with style and panache! The trees and Santas throughout the halls were their work.
Hilda Jewell helped Tommy decorate the museum and picked out decorations for the photo areas on the train platform. She bought the clickers and used them to punch tickets for the little trains, got her husband Steve Jewell to pick up volunteers from Goodfellow—and then take them back to the base at the end of a long day. She and Steve stopped for a while to put wreaths on veterans’ graves, but they came back to work some more.
Mary Alice Smith created posters about Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas and passed them out. She also helped decorate the museum and the photo areas. She drove Santa, Mrs. Claus and the Grinch to their rendezvous with the train—then rode the train with them. She helped stabilize the wild line at the little Choo Choo train. She looked so good in her green and red outfit she’ll have to find other places to wear it.
Chuck, Sar Ah, Cole and Clara Horton started before the Concho Christmas parade by cleaning and preparing the new train. The day of Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas, the whole family arrived early and worked all day. Even the two little ones carried chairs for the Ice House Band. Sar Ah and Chuck created the cute, signed cards given to every child—and they designed and made the brand-new Santa’s Special Ticket that was such a hit this year. The whole family worked the craft booth inside the museum, making ornaments and managing the kids’ coloring area. As if that wasn’t enough, they dressed up so that we had Santa and Mrs. Claus and elves from 2-4 p.m. in the photo area. They ended their day by greeting people in the parking lot.
Tim Dimiceli of Train Geeks communicated with vendors and food trucks, making sure each one got the set-up information ahead of time. He worked very hard getting the museum’s sound system working and got the music playing both inside and outside. He even brought in Christmas movies to play on the lobby TV. The day of the event, he set up the heavy barricades to close off the street in front of the museum, worked with anyone who wanted to know about the museum’s trains for sale, picked out and drilled holes for little train ornaments and did countless other things.
Tina Dimiceli worked for weeks coordinating the business of getting ready for Santa’s Santa Fe Christmas. She made flyers and created badges for vendors, food truck operators and volunteers. When vendors arrived, she checked each one in, talked to them about logistics, gave them their badge and let them know we were glad to have them. Then she worked all day selling train and museum tickets to hundreds of people.
Liz Curtis, who creates all the scavenger hunts, made a new, bigger one that visitors enjoyed during the Christmas event. All day she led guided tours, took turns at the cash register, counted money and accepted credit cards. She brought sandwiches, chips and goodies for the workers and put them in the volunteer room. She stayed till the end to make sure everything was done.
Bruce Partain shot the excellent photos of Santa, Mrs. Claus and the Grinch and these for our website. The day of the event, he started at 7 a.m. emptying trashcans and distributing them around the grounds. He worked a booth all day, helped carry equipment and checked in the office to see if anything was needed. At the end of the event he went all around the property, picking up and emptying the full trashcans so that no mess was left to get even messier.
We’re so honored that Texas Pacifico brought the star of the show to the Railway Museum. When that great big engine pulled into the station, there was a spontaneous cheer from the crowd. It’s so much bigger, more historic and more AMAZING than anyone imagines. And many of the children have never experienced a close encounter with a train in their lives. Santa, Mrs. Claus, the Grinch and Mrs. Claus’ helper loved riding on it.
HEB brought HEBuddy to make every child smile—and if you haven’t escorted a 6-foot-tall grocery bag around a crowded lot, you can’t even imagine how hard that is!! HEB’s booth had cute little gifts for everyone. Their support as the Railway Museum’s annual super sponsor is everything to this nonprofit organization.
We are also so grateful to our other sponsors Republic Services, First Community Federal Credit Union and Becke Willis.
Just in time for this event Angelo Glass finished fixing the renovation of the plexiglass on the San Angelo Model Train room. They’ll be replacing the plexiglass in all the rest of the model train rooms after the first of the year. They’ve done so many nice things for us and we’re lucky to have them as our close neighbors.
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Goodfellow tour guides were Kloey Smith (conductor) and Sophia Blackwell (engineer). Deputies Lonnie Griffith and Travis Dudley worked hard!
Other volunteers included Luke Perkins, Billy Murphy, Kayden Carpenter, Jackson Coad, Mack Johnson, Carlos Hernandez, RSVP volunteer Cricket Pairett, Brenda Fuson, videographer Damon Bell & the Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Bear.
Thank you to the vendors and food truck owners who brought their creative wares to the Railway Museum: NextHome Centurian Realty, Wendy Woodring, Dana Bell, Eppy Mendoza, Stephen Bright, Arthur Lovell, Carlos Rodriguez, Troy Klausner, Linda Mata, Amanda Ibarra, Daniela Sanchez, Crystal Davis, Crystal Garcia, Sarah Slack, Debra McFarland, Dalila Sanjuan, Alyssa Aguirre, Laura Hierro, Alejandra Nieto, Laura Grimes, Nicholas Davidson, Bethany Gutierrez, Vanessa Castillo, Anh Trinh, Faith Martinez, Byron Rogers, Pam Wade, Judy Fowler and Carlos Rodriguez.
Thanks also to the media of San Angelo. They do a great job and they're so supportive of the community.
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