Gonna get me a lucky coin, eh?

I know I sound like a broken record, but I’m really, really hoping we get the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train to travel through New York this year. CP is supposed to announce the train schedule (or COVID-restricted concert) today on their website.

Yeah, I’m hitting that <F5> button on that web browser like I’ve swallowed four cans of Red Bull and started a game of Defender.

Well, I’m still holding out hope for the train this year.

And there might be an added piece of luck.

The Royal Canadian Mint, as part of is annual commemorative 50-cent Christmas pieces – they’ve struck coins with Santa Claus on them, with trimmed Christmas trees, all of that – have created a 50-cent legal tender coin in which the obverse features the locomotive of the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train.

No, seriously. It’s right here, you can order the coins online.

And get this – it’s a lenticular coin. Hold it at one angle, and you see the locomotive in daytime. Tilt the coin, and it changes to a night scene with the train lit up.

I ordered two of these little treasures. The plan is to keep one in its special commemorative holder, and the other coin will travel in my pocket as a lucky talisman should the Holiday Train take to the rails this season.

And what happens if COVID cancels the Holiday Train this season?

Then I’ll hold onto those coins and wish for good fortune in 2022.

Yes, readers, I sound like a broken record. I do want to get out there and have a photographic train run. I want to get lots of fantastic pictures and I want to enter those photos in competition in 2022, and I want all the prize money earned from those photos to go directly to the food banks. That’s the deal, Canadian Pacific. Gentleman’s agreement from me. You give me a train to photograph, and I promise that every time my photos win prize money in competition, that money will go to the food bank rather than to my pocket.

That’s all I want, and that’s all I ask.

And as much as I understand that it may be safer to host a COVID-restricted televised concert instead of a cross-country locomotive … and as much as I respect whatever decision CP makes …

Please, CP? Pretty please with Timbits and Molson on top? Pretty please with CTM scrip and a binge watch of Kim’s Convenience?

The decision will be made today.

So I should look for a puff of smoke from CP’s Calgary headquarters.

Kinda hoping that puff of smoke comes from Locomotive 2816, “The Empress.” But I’ll settle for the diesel 2246 if that means I’ll be chasing that train in November.

UPDATE: For the second consecutive year, due to COVID-19, the Holiday Train will not travel this year, and instead another virtual concert will be held in its stead.