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JERSEYVILLE - The Kansas City Southern Holiday Express was embraced with open arms in Jerseyville on Monday at Illinois Route 16 and Morean Street.

Mike Ward, one of the organizers of the event, said he received a lot of positive feedback from Kansas City Southern on the stop and added that they believe about 2,000-plus people went through the line to visit Santa.

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Children were able to board the train, visit with Santa and receive a bag of seasonal goodies. People also gathered around the fire pits for a Smores Kit for kids and complimentary hot chocolate.

"It went very well," Ward said. "The event was was well-organized and the line moved very quickly. We did have over 2,000 people in three hours going through the line. We gave away 140 gallons of hot chocolate and even ran out before everybody got a cup.
We gave away all the Smores and didn’t charge for them, although we were going to before. The city also gave away a lot of candy. It was a huge success."

Ward said there was a steady stream of people lining up for the event.

"Kansas City Southern was in awe how nice and well organized it was on the Jerseyville side of things," Ward said. "We had two tour buses from St. Louis come to Jerseyville for it. We tried to target outside to St. Louis and all the surrounding communities. We had people from all over the area come."

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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