Go Inside the CTA Holiday Train

If you’re heading downtown via the CTA Holiday Train, stay in the festive spirit with the Museum of Illusions’ Chicago Christmas Tree Adventure 2024. This free experience takes you to seven of the city’s most beautifully decorated trees. Those who complete the tour will receive a coupon for 10% off admission to the Museum of Illusions, one of the most fun and whimsical experiences in town.

By Dave Lifton (@daveeatschicago)

Like traffic and potholes, complaining about public transportation is a ritual for those who live in a major city, whether it’s the train that takes us to work is too crowded or a late bus is making us wait outside on a bitterly cold day. But in Chicago in December, there’s one thing that brightens up even the grinchiest of commuters: The CTA Holiday Train.

From the day after Thanksgiving until a couple of days before Christmas, the Holiday Train runs Tuesday through Saturday, making a roundtrip on a different line to guarantee that every stop receives multiple visits. It only travels on the Yellow Line—the three stop route between Skokie and the Chicago-Evanston border—for several hours on Dec. 23. Then, the cars are stored in Skokie for the other 11 months of the year.

Unlike the somewhat drab cars that are seen throughout the “L” on a daily basis, the six-car Holiday Train (“Santa’s Express,” as the sign on the front car calls it) is a sight to behold, winding its way through city decked out in thousands of colorful blinking lights.

The wonder continues inside the cars, which are all lit up in red and green and the roof designed to look like a snowy night sky. Elves pass out mini-candy canes (while also making sure that the cars don’t exceed capacity), Christmas music plays overhead, and groan-worthy riddles line the walls instead of advertisements (sample: “Which of Santa’s reindeer is the best at football? Blitzen”).

And then there’s Santa Claus, who sits in his sleigh atop an open-air car in the middle throughout the entire route. On Saturdays, the train makes longer stops so that people can take pictures with him. Warmers for Santa’s hands and feet are built onto the train, because apparently even a North Pole-dweller can have problems dealing with a Chicago winter.

The train is so woven into the fabric of Chicago’s holiday season that it’s almost had to imagine that it’s a relatively recent invention. In 1992, CTA employees started a food drive for local charities. To deliver 50 boxes of food they collected, they used an out-of-service Blue Line train with a sign reading “Seasons Greetings from the CTA.”

Over the next few years, the train became decorated more festively. Its visibility as it went down the Kennedy Expressway led people to ask the CTA if they could ride it, which started in 1996. Since then, it’s become a beloved part of Chicago’s December traditions, up there with the lights on the Magnificent Mile, chicken pot pie at the Walnut Room at Marshall Field’s, the Christkindlmarket, and another promising Bears’ season going down the drain.

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However, there have also been a few times when its future was in doubt. During a budget crisis in 2004, then-CTA President Frank Kruesi announced the cancelation of the Holiday Train. But the outcry from the public and the CTA Board caused the agency to reverse course. Since 2015, the CTA has accepted corporate sponsorship to defray the additional costs associated with the train.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 posed a different challenge. Concerned about the health risk caused by overcrowded trains, the CTA ran the train through the city so that people could take photos and videos, but didn’t allow passengers to board. 

In 2014, the CTA launched the Holiday Bus. Dressed as “Ralphie the Reindeer,” it hits 17 routes with Santa popping out of the roof hatch. The interior is similarly decked out as the train, and features artwork from local schoolchildren that transform the 60-foot bus into a Christmas village.

As much as it has grown over the years, the original purpose of the train has never been forgotten. The CTA Holiday Train still delivers food to those in need. In 2024, it will deliver approximately 400 baskets of food that contain a full holiday meal—canned ham, potatoes, vegetables, mac and cheese, muffin mix, and desert—to local community organizations. 

You can follow the paths of both on the CTA’s Train Tracker and Bus Tracker.

The author of this article has been known to schedule his days in December around when the CTA Holiday Train will be arriving at his station.