My son has been enamored with trains since before he even said his first words. By the time he was four, he could recite so many facts about chassis, engines, train cars, and turntables that it would make my head spin. His bedroom is decorated to look like a vintage train depot, complete with an old Amtrak station sign. Christmas quickly became his favorite holiday, not just because of the glittering lights and excitement of gifts, but because his old soul recognized the warm nostalgia evoked by snow-covered steam engines. The magic of the holidays, for him, has always been accompanied by the melody of chugging trains. 

A couple of years ago, we took him to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad’s North Pole Adventure. He excitedly sat under the blanket of stars covering the dome car’s glass roof and wrote his letter to Santa. He told his teacher and friends afterward, with such conviction that no one dared correct him, that he rode the Polar Express to the North Pole. We still have the commemorative bell ornaments from that night, and every year when we hang them, we ring them to remind ourselves that we still “believe.”

This year, while unpacking our Christmas decorations, I picked up another fragile ornament from his very first train trip, a tiny Christmas tree with a locomotive circling the base. I found myself wondering again why trains are so deeply woven into the holiday season. Why are they everywhere in December and almost nowhere the rest of the year?

That moment became the start of this piece. 

The Trains We See Only in December

It’s a moment that happens in countless homes every winter; a quiet ritual tucked between the unboxing of ornaments and the untangling of lights. Someone pulls out the holiday train. The small engine clicks onto its track, the cars fall into place, and soon a miniature locomotive begins its steady loop around the base of the tree.

It’s a scene so familiar we rarely question it. Even people who don’t put up a Christmas tree recognize the train as an integral symbol of Americana holiday lore. Trains feel like they belong to winter, and holiday trains in particular feel like they belong to memory itself.

The Story That Defined a Generation: The Polar Express

If there is one story that cemented the connection between trains and Christmas, it's The Polar Express, at least for anyone born after 1980. Chris Van Allsburg’s book is only 40 years old, but it’s already entered the holiday canon as if it had always existed. Even adults who have never ridden a train in their lives can picture it: a lone steam engine pulling through the snow, a child stepping onboard in pajamas, a journey toward belief.

The Polar Express didn’t invent the holiday train tradition; it gathered all the elements of winter wonder into one unforgettable image: a lone steam engine, pulling through the snow toward promise. It reinforced something we already felt… There is something about a train in winter that feels like possibility.

A Season Built on Rail

The origins of this seasonal ritual stretch back more than a century. As railroads expanded across the U.S. and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, trains became a primary means for travel, especially during the holidays, when families would journey to visit relatives. The seasonal rush of passengers at major stations around Christmas is one historical root of the emotional link between trains and homecoming. These trains were once the lifeline of winter travel: soldiers returning home, families visiting, gifts being delivered across long snowy distances. Because real trains facilitated long-distance travel and the delivery of goods, including holiday gifts, trains came to represent connection, reunion, and the spirit of giving, all of which fit naturally with the themes of the winter holidays.

Toy trains emerged alongside this cultural moment. Among the earliest mass-produced toy vehicles, they captured children’s imaginations precisely because they mirrored the real engines that carried people home. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, firms such as German toy company Märklin recognized the potential for “constant revenue” in train toys: by offering add-ons, extra cars, buildings, and track expansions, they encouraged long-term engagement and collection. As electric toy trains became widely available, their realism, motion, and mechanical complexity differentiated them from simpler toys like dolls or pull-toys. For many children, assembling a train layout offered imaginative play grounded in engineering, simulation of real-world travel, and control of a small transportation world, an irresistible blend of creativity and mechanical wonder.

As more families acquired these sets, it became common to assemble the track around the base of the Christmas tree, partly because the tree provided a central decorative focal point and partly because it was simply where there was space. What began as a practical placement gradually became symbolic: the circle of track became part of the “holiday scene.” For many, the loop of a toy train under a festively lit evergreen evokes childhood wonder, movement, and the magic of the season. Within a generation, the “train around the tree” wasn’t a fad; it was a tradition. And once a symbol becomes sacred to a season, it stays there.

Toy manufacturers quickly recognized the emotional power of this holiday association. Companies like Lionel marketed electric train sets as the ultimate Christmas gift and later partnered with Hallmark, the kings of Christmas, to create collector’s ornaments based on those early sets. Parents watched their children’s faces light up at the sight of a tiny world they could control.

With the diversification of toys, the prominence of train sets in everyday children’s play diminished. So, they have retained a stronger symbolic role during holidays than as ordinary playthings. The seasonal “window” acted as a cultural anchor, making toy trains a recurring winter-holiday motif, and they naturally became nostalgic touchstones, reminders of childhood, family traditions, and simpler times, even as real-life passenger rail quietly disappeared from daily experience.

The Strange Disappearance of Trains the Rest of the Year

The curious thing is that trains nearly vanish once the holidays end. We pack away the decorations, wrap the ornament with the tiny locomotive, and return to a world where real trains that connect cities, carry people, and make travel easier rarely cross our daily paths.

It’s tempting to call all this nostalgia, but I’m not convinced that’s what it is. When my son held that magical bell at the North Pole Adventure, he wasn’t longing for the past; he was responding to a possibility, to the experience of travel that felt meaningful and shared.

Even households that don't think about Amtrak all year still instinctively place a train at the heart of their holiday displays. That signals something deeper. Our connection to trains didn’t fade; our access to them did. The holiday train isn’t a relic. It’s a reminder of something we once had in abundance: reliable, comfortable passenger rail that linked communities and made travel an adventure instead of a burden. Maybe our fondness for these miniature locomotives isn’t simply sentimental at all, but rather a quiet signal that we still believe in what trains promise, and that it’s time to make that promise real again.

Bringing It Home

All of this nostalgia, these ornaments, these stories, these magical winter rides are not random. They are pieces of cultural muscle memory. 

Ohio now stands on the cusp of something transformative. Corridor ID studies are moving forward. Communities are imagining new connections. The idea of hopping on a train, not just as a holiday novelty but as an everyday, reliable choice, is finally within reach.

At All Aboard Ohio, we see the holiday train not as a relic but as a reminder that we already know how trains make us feel and that we believe in them without even thinking about it. A reminder that winter magic can become a year-round reality.

This December, as your train circles your tree or you read The Polar Express for the hundredth time, imagine this:

What if trains weren’t just a seasonal symbol? What if they were part of our daily lives again? What if Ohio could turn winter magic into a Midwest future?

Maybe the bell still rings for all of us… We just have to listen.