David Goodwin IV didn’t know he’d be seeing Santa Saturday when parents Dave and Emily Goodwin of East Boothbay and Emily’s parents Karen and Mark Werner of Southport took the 4-year-old and his brother Dylan, 9 months, to Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum’s Victorian Christmas.

Family members said they are all into trains. They kept Santa a surprise, said Mark, a Boothbay Railway Village member. 

After the ride over the Alna nonprofit’s narrow gauge rails from Sheepscot Station to Alna Center Station, the family had David look out the passenger car window toward a shiny red pickup truck. Just beyond it, Santa and Mrs. Claus were greeting visitors.

“Are you going to tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” his grandmother asked.

He paused, with his eyes fixed straight ahead, toward the scene in the bright snow, and then, eyes still fixed, said one, drawn-out word: “Yeah.”

Past museum president Steve Zuppa and wife Kathy Zuppa were Santa and Mrs. Claus as they are each year. “It gets cold, but it doesn’t get old,” Kathy said, smiling, when asked about the tradition. “It’s Christmastime and just seeing all the kids, it’s quite a gig.”

Families and other riders arrived at the Cross Road museum bundled for the cold. Attendees had cookies at Sheepscot Station and the warmth of an outdoor fire at Alna Center Station. There, besides the Clauses, were Linda Verney and her Belgian draft horses Bob and Bill of Verney’s Wood Field Farm in Alna giving wagon rides over the snow. There wasn’t enough snow for a sleigh, Verney said Monday. Plans call for the three to be back Saturday, Dec. 23, giving rides again on the concluding day of Victorian Christmas.

The event at the museum at 97 Cross Road is free and starts at 10:30 a.m. For more, visit wwfry.org

“I think it’s great that they do this,” Karen Werner said during the ride to Alna Center Station.