The Santa Train Leaves From Callahan Drive. Tickets Are Sold at a Counter in Fairlington.

Why do you have to drive to a hobby shop in Fairlington to get a seat on a train that leaves from Alexandria Union Station, right across Callahan Drive from the Masonic Memorial?

Because the Santa Railway Express is Whistle Stop Hobbies' event, and 2026 is the shop's 20th annual run. It boards at King Street Station, a short trip from Rosemont's front porches. The tickets are another matter. You can only buy them in person at the shop, and each ride holds 200 people. The station is the easy part of planning this day. The trip to the counter is the hard part.

Four afternoons, 200 seats each

The 2026 train runs on four days, all of them weekdays. Each ride leaves King Street Station promptly at 1:30 p.m., goes round trip to Old Town Manassas, and gets back at 4:30 p.m.

That works out to 800 seats for the whole season, and the ride closest to Christmas is already gone. Each ticket costs $29.99. Availability can change daily as the dates get closer, so the status column shows the shop's page as of this week. A quick call to the store before you drive over will confirm what's left.

The two dates closest to Christmas are the ones under pressure. December 21 is sold out and December 17 is going fast. The two earlier Mondays, December 7 and December 14, carry no warning.

The counter at 1719 Centre Plaza

Whistle Stop Hobbies is at 1719 Centre Plaza in the Fairlington shopping center. The shop opened on May 1, 2005, and Patch reported that it started in Old Town before moving to Fairlington, where it later took a space around the corner in the same center.

The event page is blunt about the most important rule:

"Everyone must have a ticket! Even infants – no exceptions. There is a maximum of 200 people per ride."

Here's how a family can plan the errand:

1. Count every rider. Babies, grandparents and the parent who plans to sit quietly with a coffee each need a $29.99 ticket.
2. Go during store hours. The shop's contact page lists Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
3. Choose a date before you go. December 7 and December 14 are the open Mondays. December 17 is the Thursday that's going fast.
4. Clear the afternoon. The ride takes three hours, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., on a weekday.

You can't buy online, so whoever goes to the counter needs the whole group's head count and the date settled before leaving home.

Seventy-five minutes in Manassas

The ride itself is only part of the trip. Once the train reaches Manassas, riders get off for about an hour and 15 minutes. The shop serves hot chocolate, cookies and water, holds story time inside the station, and has Santa answer questions on the platform. Mr. and Mrs. Claus also ride along and greet children with a holiday treat.

The shop doesn't run this alone. Arlington Magazine called it a VRE train in its 2023 holiday guide. In 2024, the Zebra Press listed Virginia Railway Express, Historic Manassas and Hooray for Books as co-sponsors.

Old Town Manassas has a railroad landmark of its own. According to the City of Manassas, the city owns the Southern Railway Depot. It was rebuilt after a 1914 fire destroyed the original 1904 building. Today it holds the offices of Historic Manassas, Inc., the Visitor Center, and a small rail-history exhibit. The city lists it as free and open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The station on Rosemont's side of the tracks

The ride starts and ends at a building that dates from Rosemont's own era. VRE's history of the station says Alexandria Union Station opened on September 15, 1905, as a one-story brick building facing the Masonic Memorial.

The City of Alexandria's page on the station adds the background. The Pennsylvania Railroad's chief engineer's office in Philadelphia designed it in the Colonial Revival style with Federal details. The name "union" came from the consolidation of rail lines in Alexandria. The city notes that most depots of that period used bolder Victorian or Beaux Arts styles. Alexandria's station took its design from buildings put up just after the American Revolution, drawing on the City Beautiful movement that was shaping Washington at the same time.

The station has two buildings, a passenger depot and a baggage building. A glass breezeway was added between them during the 1997 restoration, which the City of Alexandria led with funding from the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. For the most part, the restoration returned the station to how it looked in 1905. The city took ownership in 2000, and Amtrak and VRE trains still stop there.

Rosemont was laid out as a streetcar suburb between 1908 and 1914, so this station is a few years older than the neighborhood. The city describes the building's purpose as a municipal gateway meant to give travelers a sense of arrival.

Making a Monday of it on Callahan Drive

Two of the open dates fall on Mondays, which happens to be a day the George Washington Masonic National Memorial across the street is open. The Memorial's Plan Your Visit page lists its regular days as Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tours start at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Its tours page says guided tours take about an hour and are included in admission.

That timing lines up well. An 11 a.m. tour should end around noon, which leaves time for lunch before walking back across Callahan Drive for the 1:30 p.m. departure. The Memorial's exhibits include the George Washington Museum, and its ninth-floor observation deck has 360-degree views of Alexandria, Washington, D.C., and the surrounding region.

A few details to know before booking:

• Admission is $20 per person, and you need advance reservations.
• Children 12 and under get in free with an adult.
• Bring photo ID.
• The Memorial closes on federal holidays, so check its site for December hours.

The Memorial's gift shop sells holiday ornaments, which make an easy souvenir from the day.

For an evening outing on the same hill, the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic and the Alexandria Choral Society perform Festival of Light at the Memorial on Saturday, December 12, from 7 to 8 p.m. Visit Alexandria lists tickets starting at $45, sold through WashMetPhil. The program includes Carl Nielsen's Helios Overture, Jessie Montgomery's Starburst, Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols, and Elaine Hagenberg's Illuminare.

Put together, the station and the Memorial make a full December day on Callahan Drive. The one piece you have to take care of elsewhere is the ticket trip to 1719 Centre Plaza, and the earlier Mondays are the dates with seats left.

If you're hosting family in December and want help planning a day on Callahan Drive, or you're curious how Rosemont's 1905 station fits into the neighborhood's streetcar-era history, Christine Garner is glad to talk it through. Call Christine and talk with an Old Town neighborhood expert who knows these streets.