CLEVELAND — The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad has come to a temporary halt during its 50th anniversary celebration, said Joe Mazur, the President and CEO of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. 

“We’ve been here 50 years, but the rail has been here since 1880,” Mazur said. 

Mazur said the train tracks that travel through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park need some repairs because of erosion.

“We are blessed to have a rail that is right here in our national park, in this beautiful area, but it is also next to the river and the river sometimes gets a little too close and we have to make sure we are safe for our passengers and we had to close recently," he said.

Most of the train programs have been cancelled until the repairs on the tracks are complete, which Mazur assures will happen thanks to a $14 million grant given to the park to work on erosions. 

“We will be working with the national park on repairing the issue that we have with the erosion and hopefully early on next year we are back up and running but we don’t have details of that yet,” he said. “We know we will be up and running sometime after the first of the year.” 

The good news is one of the most popular traditions, the North Pole Adventure, will still run this season, starting on Nov. 11.

“It is an experience that kids and families look forward to every single year,” Mazur said. “We’ve been running it over 25 years and this is kind of the most challenging we have.” 

In order to make sure families could make it to the North Pole via train, the railroad had to make some adjustments to this year's trip.

“We’ve come up with a solution that is even better than what we have had before. An example is the kids will have more time with Santa, and who could argue with more time with Santa,” he said. “They will be going to the north pole work shop so it’s a little bit different, they will get to see where the toys are made and they get to see a lot of different aspects of the north pole by taking the trip this year.”