Did a Michigan Train Really Inspire The Polar Express? It’s Complicated.

“I climbed on that train. I actually stood on it!”

That was Chris Van Allsburg in 2004, shortly before The Polar Express reached theaters, when a Detroit Free Press reporter told him which locomotive Hollywood had used as its model. It was Pere Marquette 1225, the same steam engine he’d scrambled onto as a boy on his way to Michigan State football games with his dad. He had no idea.

The engine didn’t inspire the book, at least not in any way he could point to. But the story of how a Grand Rapids kid, a nearly scrapped locomotive and a group of stubborn college students ended up on the same track is almost as magical as the book itself. We dug through decades of interviews to piece it together. And yes, you can still ride the real thing this season.

ACT SOON! The Real Polar Express Train Rides Are Still Available

A Steam Engine Built for the Long Haul

In 1941, a massive steam locomotive rolled out of the Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio, ready to get to work for the Pere Marquette Railway.

The Berkshire-type engine, numbered 1225, hauled freight through Michigan during World War II and the years that followed. It was powerful, hardworking, and, as it turned out, among the last steam locomotives the railroad would order.

By the early 1950s, diesel locomotives were taking over. The 1225 was retired, and by 1957, it was sitting in a New Buffalo rail yard, waiting to be scrapped.

Instead, Michigan State University gave it a new purpose as a display near Spartan Stadium. For years, fans walked past the enormous engine on their way to football games. Some kids climbed up for a better look. One kid, in particular. But we’ll get to that.

A Grand Rapids Kid Dreams Up a Train

Chris Van Allsburg grew up fascinated by trains. He had an electric train set and remembered seeing a stationary steam engine at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

“They seemed so gigantic and heavy that the idea of them moving was like contemplating a building moving on its own,” he told Bookreporter in 2004.

He loved the machinery and imagined its sounds: wheezing pistons, escaping steam, bells, and whistles. But as a child, he never saw a steam engine running under its own power.

Years later, Van Allsburg pictured a train standing still in a snowy forest. It had only a few cars and a mammoth engine. As he imagined footsteps crunching through the snow, a child in a bathrobe and slippers came into view.

The scene became the beginning of The Polar Express. He told TeachingBooks it was more like a “recovered memory” than a story he was inventing.

In 1985, the book arrived on shelves, inviting readers aboard a Christmas Eve journey to the North Pole. That same year, back in Michigan, the 1225 was beginning another journey of its own.

The Locomotive Gets Moving Again

A group of Michigan State students had decided the old locomotive deserved more than a quiet retirement. They wanted to bring it back to life.

There was just one small problem: They didn’t know much about restoring a steam engine. So they learned as they went, taking things apart, studying the machinery, and figuring out how to put it back together.

In 1975, they fired up the boiler and blew the whistle. Former student Aarne Frobom later told the Lansing State Journal it was a chance to hear a sound that had gone quiet before many of them were born.

After years of work and another close call over where the unfinished locomotive would live, the 1225 found a home in Owosso. In 1985, it moved under its own steam for the first time in 34 years. By 1988, it was carrying passengers on excursions.

The students who saved it couldn’t have known that Hollywood would eventually come looking for a steam locomotive with a little Christmas magic.

Hollywood Finds Its Christmas Train

When filmmakers began turning The Polar Express into a movie, they searched for a real locomotive that resembled the one in Van Allsburg’s book.

According to the Lansing State Journal, they contacted the Smithsonian and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, whose officials pointed them toward Owosso.

There, they found Pere Marquette 1225.

Dennis Braid, then executive director of the Steam Railroading Institute, had spent years working to preserve the locomotive. He told the Detroit Free Press he hadn’t even heard of The Polar Express before Hollywood came calling.

The filmmakers were considering other engines nationwide. But the Michigan locomotive had a number that gave it an extra bit of holiday sparkle. 1225 — as in 12/25. Christmas Day.

“They were looking at other steam engine trains around the country, but when they saw the number 1225, they knew this was the one,” Braid told the Detroit Free Press. “It just brought the story to life.”

— Dennis Braid, former Executive Director of the Steam Railroading Institute

In July 2004, a Skywalker Sound crew came to Owosso to capture the real locomotive at work. They recorded coal being shoveled, wheels rolling, and cars clattering together. For hours, the 1225 went back and forth so the crew could capture its many sounds.

“We were told right out that they want to get the locomotive detailed, every nut and bolt,” Braid told the Grand Rapids Press.

That whistle and those wheels would help bring the movie’s train to life. It would also soon ring a bell for the famed author.

“I Climbed on That Train!”

Shortly before the movie’s release, Van Allsburg spoke with a Detroit Free Press reporter about the locomotive behind the animated train. When the reporter mentioned that the 1225 had once stood on Michigan State’s campus, something clicked.

“I remember that train on campus. I can’t believe it’s the same train,” Van Allsburg said. “I climbed on that train. I actually stood on it!”

The Michigan boy who imagined The Polar Express had visited the 1225 on his way to football games with his father. Nearly 20 years after he wrote the book, he learned that the filmmakers had chosen that very same engine as their model.

You’ll often hear that the 1225 inspired The Polar Express book, but the connection isn’t that straightforward. Van Allsburg has often said writing the story felt more like recalling a memory than inventing one.

He had marveled at a locomotive at the Henry Ford Museum and climbed on the 1225 as a boy, but he didn’t recognize the train filmmakers chose until a reporter mentioned its Michigan State history in 2004, nearly 20 years after the book was published. Those childhood encounters may have helped shape the grandeur of his imagined train, even if he couldn’t say exactly where memory ended and imagination began.

“I’m sure the book is greatly indebted to things I experience when I was growing up, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. Little things are planted in your mind, and they sit there. Then, sometime later, you harvest them,” he told the Grand Rapids Press in 2004.

However, he did say that the display at Herpolsheimer’s was one of his fondest holiday memories in Grand Rapids as a kid.

The Part of The Polar Express That Wasn’t In the Book

Van Allsburg also had an idea about the train’s trip to the North Pole that he never explained in the book.

He imagined that Santa’s elves spent 364 days a year making toys but never got to see a child receive one. If he were Santa, he said, he’d want them to experience that joy, too.

“The elves labor for 364 days a year making toys for kids, but they never get the satisfaction of giving a gift. They never get to watch a kid open a gift and see the look on his face. If I were Santa, and I wanted to be kind to my workforce, I’d arrange for the elves to see a child choose a gift. I never told that in the book, but that’s the reason for the train,” he told the Grand Rapids Press.

All this time we’ve loved the story about a child seeing Christmas through his own journey. It turns out, the story was as much for the elves as it was for the boy. After all those hours in the toy shop, we’d say they earned it.

Take Your Own Ride on the Real Polar Express

Today, the 1225 calls the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso home. Each holiday season, it’s scheduled to pull the North Pole Express to the Village of Ashley’s Country Christmas.

The real Polar Express round trip lasts about four hours and 45 minutes, including time in Ashley for festivities and a visit with Santa. Passengers receive a souvenir ticket and a “Believe” bell, and pajamas or festive clothes are welcome.

For 2026, rides are scheduled on select dates from November 20 through December 20. Check the North Pole Express page for current availability and departure details. Consider some of the other holiday train rides in Michigan, too.

Even if you’ve ridden behind the 1225 before, this time you might notice something different. Listen for the whistle that students worked for years to bring back. Look for the number that caught Hollywood’s attention. And imagine a young boy climbing on the very same locomotive, long before he dreamed up a train ride to the North Pole.

Before or after the ride, head over to Jersey Junction, the ice cream shop originally owned by Doris Van Allsburg, Chris’s mom. You’ll find a signed model of the Polar Express, plus another one chugging along the edge of the ceiling. It’s nostalgic in all the best ways.

Do You Still Hear the Bell?

We set out to write a story about the real Polar Express in Michigan. What we found along the way was something as awe-inspiring as Santa himself.

We found a locomotive that came close to being scrapped, a group of students who believed in its power long before the Polar Express, and an author who discovered that a piece of his childhood had found its way into the movie made from his book.

Maybe it was all coincidence. But it’s the kind that makes us want to believe there’s still room for a little magic in the world.

You don’t have to believe in Santa to believe in something that seems impossible. Maybe it’s a dream you haven’t given up on, a memory that still makes you smile, or the chance to experience something wonderful when you least expect it.

Though we’ve grown old, the bell still rings for us. How about you?