Santa Express train rolls into Millboro Saturday

December 2, 2014

 

Santa Claus is coming to Millboro, but he’s leaving his reindeer at the North Pole.  He will arrive by train on Saturday to greet children and to collect toys for the Toys for Tots Program.

Wayne Anderson is the coordinator for Toys for Tots for the Rockbridge Patriots Marine Corps League.

“The kids really love this,” says Anderson.  “I’ve been there for the last three or four years and they just really get excited when they see the train coming in and stopping.  The train always comes from Staunton, then it goes to the tunnel and then comes back.  And you just watch the little kids as Santa rolls by on the train, their heads turns and watch the train go on by and they think ‘Oh my goodness, he’s not going to stop’.  But they do go up and come back and it’s really pretty neat.”

The Rockbridge Patriots Marine Corps League distributes toys in Rockbridge and Highland Counties, part of Augusta County and in the Millboro area of Bath County.   Toy donations will be accepted Saturday during the train stop.

“New toys, unwrapped, don’t want them wrapped because obviously Santa has to inspect and make sure everything’s fine for the kids,” says Anderson.  “We accept any type of toy, specifically boys and girls and under twelve.  Santa does take care of the kids up to sixteen.  But our biggest response, obviously, Santa needs toys for the younger generation of kids in that six down age group and the secondary group would be from seven to, like, twelve.”

Other locations in Bath County for Toys for Tots donations include Oak Ridge Station and The Hairstyling Shop.   Last year the Rockbridge Patriots group provided toys for more than a thousand children.

“I have to emphasize without the cooperation and the donation of the time and the donation of the expense of the equipment from the Buckingham Branch Railroad, we couldn’t make the Santa Train possible,” says Anderson.  “So my hat’s off to those guys, we really do appreciate that.”

The Toys for Tots Santa Express Train will arrive in Millboro Saturday morning, December 6, at 9:30 and it will depart at 10.

“For folks in need, and this is very important, they want to make sure they get that list to Santa can go on the Toys for Tots webpage and then click on Rockbridge and put their order in,” says Anderson.

The website is www.toysfortots.org.  Or you can call Wayne Anderson at 410-241-1911.

Story By

Bonnie Ralston

Bonnie Ralston is the Assistant Station Coordinator at WVLS and a Highland County news reporter. She began volunteering at Allegheny Mountain Radio in the fall of 2005. In 2006 she became an AMR employee and worked in Bath County for eight years as the WCHG Station Coordinator and then as the news reporter there. She began working in radio while in college and has stayed connected to radio, in one way or another, for more than thirty years. She grew up in Staunton, Virginia, while spending a lot of time on her family’s farm in Deerfield, Virginia. She enjoys spending time outside, watching old TV shows and movies and tending to her chickens.
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