News Release

Kicking off the holiday season, the Library presents All Aboard: San Francisco Public Library Holiday Train, an interactive display featuring the Polar Express train. The electric toy train layout, which measures 5 feet by 10 feet and consists of 35 feet of track, is on display in front of the Fisher Children’s Center through Jan. 11, 2007.

Kids—and adults—will delight in pushing buttons that activate the Polar Express and Thomas the Tank Engine trains, a ski gondola, animated sledders, and the village lights. Large buttons, with easy-to-read signage, make the display readily accessible to young children.

A Lionel O scale replica of the Polar Express, which starred in Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 holiday classic and in a subsequent 2004 movie adaptation of the same name, is the highlight of the display. The story tells of a young boy whose belief in Santa Claus wavers until he boards the Polar Express to the North Pole. In the Library’s display, the steam locomotive pulls six coaches through a wintry landscape and a village comprised of Department 56 holiday buildings.

The holiday train display was the brainchild of Roberto Lombardi, director of operations at the Main Library. An avid train collector, Lombardi got the idea when he saw how children swarmed to a similar display at his neighborhood Noe Valley Bakery & Bread Co. “The kids would just come running when they saw the trains,” Lombardi said. “It was wonderful to see how delighted they were.” Lombardi and his operations and building maintenance crew spent many volunteer hours building the train display. Additionally, other Library staff members lent items from their personal collections to the display.

A collection of train books and other materials will be on view in the Children’s Center.

This exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.