The Polar Express is my favorite Christmas movie. I adore the story of the Hero Boy who goes on an adventure to the North Pole on The Polar Express. It’s at the top of my must watch list and at the time of writing, I’ve already watched it twice this holiday season.

As I’ve gotten older, the time distortion of this movie has always intrigued me and a few years ago, I did the math to try and figure out how it would work. Because of a lack of a few details, I can’t give an exact answer, but here is what I have.

Hero Boy, is picked up in Grand Rapids Michigan. That is 1632 miles from the Arctic Circle. The movie indicates that the North Pole is just inside the Arctic Circle. Therefore, I’m using that as a guide.

There are two ways to calculate this. From the indications we have, in the space of about a minute outside of the distortion, they travel to the North Pole, Santa makes his entrance and gives the first gift of Christmas.

In the movie, we have evidence that this trip takes several hours. But no real evidence of exactly how long.

But here are two angles to look at.

The United States has a speed limit for trains, which is 79 miles per hour. If the Polar Express were going at that speed, the trip from the point where Hero Boy was picked up would have taken 20 hours and 39 minutes.

Honestly, that seems a bit much and when doing my research I thought so as well. That lead me to look up how fast the fastest train in the world goes which is 268 miles per hour.

If the Polar Express were going at that speed the trip would take 6 hours and 5 minutes. That still seems a bit long. But it is a lot closer.

It’s interesting that the time distortion seems to be connected to two things. First off, the distortion seems connected to the Express itself. The closest thing we see to a mechanism is the custom pocket watch that the Conductor periodically checks.

From that, we can infer that there may be a limit to how much the distortion can work. Should the Polar Express be delayed too much, it may push the distortion to its limit.

Secondly, it’s connected to Santa, he possibly plays off it as well when making his journey. The distortion allows time to move forward when Santa’s given the gift even if the clock itself said five minutes til only seconds before.

This also lends credence to the theory of the distortion being pushed. Considering the Hero Boy was picked up in Michigan around Midnight Central Standard Time.

The first place to see Christmas is a little atoll called Kiritimati which rests right alongside the International Date line. They are 20 hours ahead of Michigan in time. With that in mind, it is already 8pm Christmas Day when the Hero Boy is picked up. Yet, Santa starts his journey when it hits Midnight in the Arctic Circle.

I think the two work in tandem because the Conductor mentions that it cannot be Christmas without the Polar Express arriving at the North Pole. While the real answer is Christmas magic, it’s fun to theorize over the logistics of a good time distortion.

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Featured Image: IMDb