Chuckey Depot Museum dedicates 1992 Santa Train’s locomotive sign

JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Chuckey Depot Museum and the Watauga Valley Railroad Museum hosted an event on Saturday to celebrate the donation of a sign used on the 1992 Clinchfield Santa Train during its 50th anniversary.

The museums dedicated and unveiled the steam locomotive sign during a ceremony with the public. The celebration included a look back at the 1992 50th anniversary of the Santa Train and tours of the historic Clinchfield Railroad president’s car. Other items, like an 112-year-old pioneer car, were also displayed at the event.

“This special event is for the 50th anniversary of the Santa Claus train, which ran in 1992,” said Mike Tilley, a member of Chuckey Depot. “We were donated the sign of the locomotive. It was a Challenger that Clinchfield used many years ago before the diesels came along. We were lucky [to get] a donation from the DeVault family, [who] gave us the sign.”

Tilley said the 1992 train’s engineer, the train master, that year’s Santa Claus and a historian attended the dedication.

“It just brings back memories of the train,” he said. “Thousands of people were on the tracks. It ran from Pikeville, Kentucky, down to Kingsport in November ’92. And there were just thousands of people. They come in from everywhere. So it was a major event and we just wanted to come in the event and let everybody see pictures, meet the people that were involved in it, hear stories and stuff like that.”

Tilley said the museum hopes to make the sign a revolving display that can be moved to various locations in the future.

The event was held at the Chuckey Depot Museum in Jonesborough.

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