The Canadian Pacific Railway’s Holiday Train, adorned with thousands of colored lights, will stop in Annandale the night of Monday, Dec. 13, for the first time in its four-year history. The train is scheduled to arrive at 9:15 p.m. when performers will present a 30-minute show from a boxcar stage, said CPR spokeswoman Laura Baenen. In past years the Holiday Train has stopped at Buffalo, then rolled through Annandale. “We try to add some new towns every year and move it around and let other communities see it,” Baenen said. She said last year that she would consider recommending an Annandale stop if the city or other organization made a request and was willing to take on the work involved in promoting it. The Annandale Area Chamber of Commerce didn’t request the stop, but it’s willing to get involved in promoting it, said president Marlene Young. “The chamber will jump on board to help promote the CPR Holiday Train coming to town,” Young said. The CPR operated the first Holiday Train in Canada in 1999, then added a second train in the United States in 2001 to benefit a variety of local food banks. A Canadian train will visit 50 commuities north of the border while the U.S. Holiday Train will make more than 25 stops in the Northeast and Midwest. The U.S. train will embark on its two-week trip on Wednesday, Dec. 1, in Scranton, Pa., and start the second leg on Thursday, Dec. 9, in Chicago. On Dec. 13, it will leave northeast Minneapolis before making stops in Loretto, Buffalo and Annandale, then continuing west through South Haven to Glenwood, where it will spend the night. It will make several more Minnesota and North Dakota stops before reaching its destination in Minot on Thursday, Dec. 16. Traveling and performing with the Holiday Train will be Indiana-born John Cowan, and his four-member band, and Canadian singer/songwriter Beverley Mahood. The train will be about 850 feet long and pull eight to 10 cars, each outlined in multi-colored lights, Baenen said. The CPR will donate more than $170,000 to local food banks in addition to food and money collected along the way. Some towns plan food shelf pledge drives around the train’s arrival. The towns do a variety of things to bring people out, Baenen said, from offering hot chocolate to providing hayrides. Crowds have ranged from 500 to about 4,000 one year at Cottage Grove, Minn. Two thousand or more people have turned out at Buffalo, she said.
