The Polar Express is a magical passenger train that takes children to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to visit Santa Claus. It consists of a steam locomotive, which is pulling a line of passenger cars, which in the film includes an abandoned toy car, a car where the children reside, and an observation car.
Role in the book[]
One Christmas Eve night, while waiting in his bed for Santa's arrival, Hero Boy is awoken to the sounds of a train. He looks out his window to find the Polar Express pulling in front of his house. He rushes outside when a Conductor steps outside and looks at his window. The Conductor invites him onboard and the train continues its journey to the North Pole.
Onboard the train, Hero Boy and the other children sing carols while being served hot cocoa and candies. The train passes through towns and villages, then a dark forest before it climbs mountains and crosses the Great Polar Ice Cap where the lights of the North Pole are seen in the distance. Finally, the train arrives at the North Pole and stops at the center of the city right at the edge of the elf crowd where the children get off.
After Hero Boy receives the silver bell as the first gift of Christmas and Santa leaves to deliver the presents, the children reboard the Polar Express to go home. Onboard, Hero Boy finds he loses the bell. One child suggests they go looking for it, but the train had started moving before they could do so, leaving Hero Boy heartbroken. Soon, the train reaches Hero Boy's house where a still sad Hero Boy gets off and goes home. The Conductor wishes him a merry Christmas, but had talked too softly, so he shouts it with his hands around his mouth as the train speeds away.
Role in the film[]
One Christmas Eve night, Hero Boy is awoken when his room starts shaking. He finds lights flashing outside his window and goes outside to find the train sitting in front of his house. The Conductor steps outside and invites Hero Boy onto the train. Hero Boy initially declines, but just as the train is leaving, he decides to jump on. Onboard, he finds other children, including Know-It-All and Hero Girl.
After the train pass Herpolsheimer's, the Conductor punches the children's tickets before the train stops at 11344 Edbrooke Avenue. The Conductor invites Billy onboard, but Billy turns it down. He changes his mind, however, but the train had already gathered too much speed for him to catch up, so Hero Boy stops the train by pulling the emergency brake. The Conductor comes back and scolds Hero Boy for stopping the train, but he is more forgiving when he learns of his true intentions. The train starts moving again as the children are served hot chocolate. Hero Girl goes to give some to Billy, but leaves her unpunched ticket on her seat, so Hero Boy goes to return it to her. The wind blows it out of his hand while he tries to go to the observation car. It gets stuck on a window, so Hero Boy pulls down the window to retrieve it, but it gets blown away again. It gently lands on the ground in the forest where a pack of wolves run past. While three of the wolves stop and watch the train race by, the other wolves rush by and the three of the animals ran with the rest of the pack and allowing the ticket to blow among them all the way towards the edge of the cliff and it blows up away from the wolves as they turn right in the other direction. As it falls towards a river near the railway viaduct, an eagle catches it and feeds it to its eaglet, who spits it out. Having been scrunched into a ball, it lands in the snow and becomes a large snowball as it rolls down a hill. The snowball hits a rock, causing the ticket to flatten again and land on the tracks in front of a tunnel with the number 1225 on a keystone. The train comes rushing out and the ticket gets blown underneath. It flies back into the passenger car and sticks onto the air vent above the emergency brake handle.
Later, the Conductor realizes he forgot to punch Hero Girl's ticket, but when she cannot find it, the Conductor takes her onto the roof of the train (though Hero Boy offers his ticket, the Conductor stops him as passengers are not allowed to give away their tickets). Fortunately, Hero Boy finds her ticket, so he too climbs onto the roof to return it. He meets the Hobo, who helps him get to the locomotive before they reach Flat Top Tunnel. In the cab, Hero Boy finds out Hero Girl was made to drive the train while Smokey and Steamer fix the headlight. Once it is fixed, Steamer suddenly sees a light ahead and calls out to Hero Girl to stop the train. Hero Boy and Hero Girl briefly argue over which is the brake, but manage to stop the train just before it crashes into a herd of caribou. They along with the Conductor walk to the front of the train to help with the situation. Once the caribou clears the track, thanks to Hero Boy and the Conductor pulling Smokey's beard causing him to scream that the caribou understands, Smokey and Steamer take over driving and the train continues on. However, the throttle jams due to a loose cotter pin, which eventually comes off and falls into an air vent, causing the train to accelerate uncontrollably. Concerned about the situation, the Conductor ties himself and the two children to the safety bar to get ready for the approaching Glacier Gulch. While on the fast downhill grade, the pin comes back out and Steamer catches it with his mouth, but swallows it by accident. The train speeds onto the Ice Lake; because the tracks are frozen over, the train ends up slide across the ice. Smokey tries to retrieve the pin by hitting Steamer's back with a shovel, which instead sends it flying out of the cab and into the ice, causing it to crack. The train hits an iceberg that causes it to tilt, almost causing Hero Girl to fall off, but is saved by the Conductor, Hero Boy, and the Hobo. Smokey finally fixes the throttle using the spare pin from his hair, allowing Steamer to stop the train. Everyone then had to move to the left side of the train to keep it from falling over. However, the ice starts cracking, so Steamer speeds the train in reverse before making it turn around at the Conductor's insistence. Once it is facing forward, Steamer drives the train away from the crumbling ice. Hero Boy sees tracks on the other side of the lake, and Steamer struggles to align the train while the Conductor navigates. The crumbling ice soon catches up, but the train lands safety on the submerged tracks, allowing it to reach the other side of the lake safely. The Conductor also punches Hero Girl's ticket before they and Hero Boy return to the passenger cars as the train climbs Corkscrew Mountain and then crosses a suspension bridge.
The train crosses the Arctic Circle where the Conductor shows Hero Boy, Hero Girl and Billy the lights of the North Pole in the distance (which resemble an ocean linear from their point of view). They soon arrive and stop at the Square where the children get off. However, the train loses the observation car when Hero Boy accidentally uncouples it while he and Hero Girl go to get Billy to come. The car stops on a turntable where the children get off and go to find a way back to the Square. After doing so, Hero Boy receives the silver bell and Santa flies off in his sleigh. The children line up at the train to get their tickets punched again while some elves use their handcar to retrieve the observation car and reattach it to the train. When they get back onboard, Hero Boy finds to have lost the bell and cannot go looking for it as the train had already started moving.
The train once again stops at 11344 Edbrooke Avenue to drop off Billy, who thanks Hero Boy for stopping the train for him earlier before going home. Later, it is Hero Boy's turn to get dropped off. He says goodbye to Hero Girl and Know-It-All and walks to his house. Just as the train starts leaving, the Conductor wishes him a Merry Christmas, repeating himself after not being heard the first time, while the Hobo on top of the train waves goodbye. It is unknown what became of the train after it drops off all the kids back to their homes.
Other appearances[]
The Polar Express: The Video Game[]
In the video game, the Polar Express is populated by a bunch of mean toys led by an Ebenezer Scrooge puppet who try to keep the children from reaching the North Pole by stealing their tickets and getting them thrown off the train by the Conductor, but are ultimately defeated by Hero Boy. The train also features cars not seen in either the book or film, including a kitchen car, a separate dining car, and several boxcars.
Trivia[]
- Near the end of the film, a model train resembling the Polar Express appears under the tree in Hero Boy's house.
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