For my Christmas present this year, my special friend Julie bought us tickets for the Holiday Express, for a night-time ride on my favorite engine, SP4449. She knows how much I love trains, especially the 4449, so it was a fantastic present!

It was a cold night, but my heart was warm, seeing that fantastic train. Here’s a picture of inside the car we were in. This is the front, but it looked like the back. See below.

This is looking towards the back of the car, which looked like the front because to get to OMSI we had to go backwards. I don’t do backwards, and Julie was kind enough to switch seats with me.

I got a kinda different shot of the Ferris Wheel at Oaks Park when the train began to move (backwards). Did I mention I don’t do backwards?

And there was Santa! How the kids loved seeing him!

He really was a great Santa.

I couldn’t get great photos because the train was jiggling rockin’ and rollin’, but I like the ethereal effect of looking across the Willamette River through the train windows, which had Christmas lights around them.

The Sellwood Bridge can barely be seen, but it’s there!

Here’s the ferris wheel again as we pull back into the “station” at Oaks Park. We are not going backwards now.

This was the best part. After we got off the train, we walked up to the engine. Take a look at those huge wheels!!

And here is my boyfriend favorite engine of all time, SP 4449.

He looks pretty good above, but look what happens when I turn off the flash!! Absolutely beautiful!!

The official nameplate:

There is just something about a steam engine that sets my heart a’racin’!

4449 is getting ready for it’s next trip. It will go up the tracks (frontwards) for a bit to exhaust the steam. I think that’s what it was. All the passengers are getting loaded onto the train.

Here’s the engineer. It shoulda been me up there. I was meant to be an engineer on a steam train.

The train heads up the tracks for a bit before going back to OMSI. It’s going frontwards now.

Then it comes back (backwards) passing us on its way back up to OMSI.

How strange. That a steam train can gimme wai maka [tears] every single time.

Mahalo nui, Julie. It was a fabulous present!