The wail of a train whistle is quite unremarkable in Elkhorn City. It's such a common part of our landscape, we hardly notice. But once a year, on a Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, a long steam blast turns every head in town, drawing young and old alike to the site of the long gone depot.
The Santa train is pulling into town.
For fifty-five years, the Santa Claus Special has made its 110 mile trek from the Shelby freight yard south of Pikeville to Kingsport, dropping candy and presents to anxious children gathered by the tracks along the way. From Elkhorn City to Dante to Dungannon, folk bring their grandchildren out to share the wonder they had felt. For the people who live along the old Clinchfield line, it is a tradition in every sense of the word.
It is a tradition sometime misunderstood. The Santa train runs through one of the more rugged and spectacular parts of Appalachia. It is an area whose oft plundered resources are valued far higher than the people who live on them. The region is plagued by a roller coaster economy which yields recurring poverty and its images of squalor. Seen by some as a cynical act of token charity, the train has been derided for perpetuating the poor hillbilly stereotype.
But the origins of the Santa train were of a wholly different intent. In 1943, a small group of Kingsport businessmen wanted to do something special to thank the people north of the city for their patronage. It was far more an act of good business than of charity. Kingsport was the nearest city for many central Appalachians, who rode the train or drove U.S. 23 to shop the its large department and hardware stores. These folk spent a good amount of cash.
The group approached officials of the Clinchfield Railroad with the idea of a train carrying Santa from Elkhorn City, where the Clinchfield line met the Chesapeake and Ohio railway, back to Kingsport to meet the annual Christmas parade. The railroad officials were glad to cooperate.
With publicity posters spread throughout the small towns along the line, a couple of cars on the back of a regularly scheduled passenger train, and fifteen tons of candies, toys and gifts, the tradition was born.
Few who grew up with the Santa train seem to find fault in its annual return to the mountains. Most would tell you its just as much part of home as the hills it snakes through. My own most vivid experience of the train might tell.
The memory does not come from my childhood waiting alongside the tracks, or from any of the times I watched it pull into Elkhorn City. It was a time when I was over 400 miles from my hometown, living in Atlanta with a wife and baby daughter.
It was Christmas day and I'd gotten up early to put a couple of toys together that I was just too tired to deal with the night before. Sunday morning and a light dusting of snow lay on the yard. It was quiet, my wife and daughter still asleep. As I began piecing together a plastic sliding board, I flipped on the tv. When the picture came up, I was presented with the image of a train pulling away from a large crowd. It was the site of the old depot in Elkhorn and I heard the voice of Charles Kurault reciting a long poem about the Santa Claus Special.
I dropped the pieces and on the floor in front of the television, tears streaming down my face. I had never or have ever been so overtaken by home sickness.
Since moving back home in 1994, I've relished the sound of that long steam whistle as the train pulls into Elkhorn. It seems as true as the gorges it passes through. When it returns the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I hope to be there again.