All Aboard the Santa Express!

If railroad enthusiasts had their way, Santa Claus would ditch his sleigh and deliver presents in a train.

Instead, Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad volunteers are delivering train buffs of all ages to Santa.

The grassroots, non-profit group, responsible for restoring and maintaining the first railroad of the West, is running its popular Holiday Train in Folsom.

It’s just the ticket for any family hoping to avoid the long line at a crowded mall —including ours—so on a sunny Saturday morning, my husband, three-year-old daughter and I caught the first train to Santa’s Grotto.

Just the fact that Emiko didn’t cry at the sight of Santa made the day a success. A pleasant ride along Folsom’s Willow Creek, which offered a brief respite from the suburban landscape, was icing on the fruitcake.

“We make sure you have a good time,” PSVR President Philip Sanders Rose said. “It’s not just seeing Santa – it’s the whole experience. Everyone has a laugh and a giggle.”

We caught the Holiday Train at a makeshift depot in the California Family Fitness parking lot, where we heard the whistle from the 1936 Weyerhauser Skagit—a former logging train—before it emerged from a wooded area.

We were greeted by conductor and PSVR Vice President Eric Olds, who punched our tickets before we started our short journey.

The Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad opened in 1856, running between Sacramento and Folsom. Nine years later, the line had been extended to Shingle Springs and by 1888 it reached Placerville.

Even though the Central Pacific Railroad won the race to be the first transcontinental railroad line, the Placerville railroad served as a valuable transportation route for goods between El Dorado County and the Central Valley.

The railroad closed in the 1930s, and today the line is owned by the Sacramento Placerville Joint Powers Authority. PSVR volunteers maintain the tracks and have spent the last several years restoring old train cars. Last year, they started offering exercusion rides to the public, with proceeds going towards caring for the tracks and cars. More than 5,000 people have taken the ride so far, according to Rose.

“It’s amazing,” Rose said. “Older people remember their youths when everyone had a family member who worked on the railway, and nowadays children still like trains even if they’re no longer an integral part of their lives.”

Clanging bells and Olds’s perfectly cadenced “All aboard!” gave our ride an authentic touch.

We quickly left suburbia behind as we headed into some trees and over a creek, stopping at a small glen along a bicycle trail, where Santa Claus himself waved to us from an A-car.

Santa and a friendly elf led us to a wooded spot near the creek, where we snacked on refreshments and played with toy trains.

Fueled by cookies and warm apple cider, Emi cautiously approached the man in red and agreed to sit on his lap long enough to take a family picture for this year’s Christmas card. Photos can be downloaded from the PSVR website.

Afterwards, we boarded the train for the ride back to the depot and headed to the nearby Visconti’s Ristorante for a tasty pizza lunch.

Spending the day outdoors, learning a little bit about California’s railroad past and visiting Santa free from the crowds was definitely worth the trip to Folsom.

The Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad’s Santa Train will run Sunday as well as December 17 and 18. Departures are every half hour from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from the California Family Fitness parking lot, 700 Oak Avenue Parkway in Folsom.

The suggested donation is $15 for anyone over the age of three.  A $5 discount coupon is available at www.psvrr.org.

If you miss this year’s holiday train rides, be sure to check the group’s web site this spring for the 2012 season schedule.