Operation North Pole Will Depart From Des Plaines Metra Station

Operation North Pole (ONP) once again shares the magic of Christmas, and all the joy it brings, with 62 families who have a child or children suffering from life-threatening or terminal illnesses by taking them on a fanciful trip to the North Pole on Saturday, December 7, 2013. This very special train ride will depart Des Plaines Metra station at 11:15 a.m., a press release states.

In this their fifth year of delighting families, ONP is wrapping the exterior of a Metra train car, and for the first time ever, a Metra locomotive, with bright holiday colors and images of Santa’s Gingerbread Express. ONP is the first organization in the Chicago area to wrap a holiday train and locomotive for the purpose of providing families who have children battling life-threatening illnesses with the fantasy of traveling to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus. The train cars will remain wrapped for the remainder of the holiday season, delighting young and old as they whisk-by on Metra’s Union Pacific rails this winter.

What a magical trip to the North Pole it will be! The excited families will board the train in Des Plaines. The non-stop journey to Pingree Road station in Crystal Lake will include activities led by Mrs. Claus, the Gingerbread Express Elves and Conductor, and firefighters from the North Pole Fire Department!  On the return ride to the Des Plaines station, fire departments in the towns along the way will be out with their fire engines and dressed in holiday attire holding up signs with arrows reading “North Pole this way!”

The Des Plaines public is invited to join the firefighters at the Cumberland Train Station at 12:50 p.m. to cheer-on the families as the train slowly rolls-by, or at the Des Plaines Downtown train station at 12:55 p.m. to welcome the families to their destination as the families disembark the train and board the buses for the Winter Wonderland.  The indicated times are estimates. 

Once back in Des Plaines, the families will board charter buses and parade to Santa’s Winter Wonderland at the Donald E. Stephens Rosemont Convention and Banquet Center.  Greeting his guests as they arrive at the North Pole, Santa will lead the families through his Gauntlet of Honor, where dozens of police officers and firefighters from Chicago-area communities bend to one knee, clapping and providing hope and encouragement for the families as they are lead to the 28,000 square foot south ballroom which has been transformed into a child’s sugar plum dream.  Each child aged 12 and younger will visit with Santa and receive wrapped gifts selected from wish lists they wrote to Santa earlier in August. This is truly a day of magical moments for each family.

Children participating in this incredible day are referred to ONP by Child Life Specialists from area children’s hospitals and directors from four area Ronald McDonald Houses.  

It is a day free from the worry and stress of hospital stays and medical treatments; a day to just be a child at Christmas.  With the emotional and financial stresses that a family with a child battling a life-threatening or a terminal illness may face, ONP makes sure that all of the children in the immediate family participate and share in the joyful festivities.  Approximately 150 children will participate this year.

To learn more about ONP, visit www.operationnorthpole.org.