utah christmas light display

Utah Man Drives Christmas Light Display on Wheels Through Town


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ESCALANTE, Utah (AP) -- A former mayor in a small southern Utah town has constructed a unique way to spread Christmas cheer: A huge light display on wheels.

Lenza Wilson drives the 200-foot-long (61-meters) "Christmas train" through the town of Escalante on many nights during the holiday season, KSL-TV reported .

Wilson's train is a modified pickup truck that pulls 16 trailers covered in thousands of Christmas lights. The lights are arranged on Christmas trees and other decorative structures attached to the trailers.

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Wilson started his mobile Christmas display more than two decades ago.

"I started out with a car with a tree in the trunk and drove around town," Wilson said. "And people liked it."

Wilson built his train over the years by scouring landfills and scrapheaps to find trailers and materials to string together. The electrician had no problem wiring the display, but the number of lights got a little bit out of hand, he said.

The display could have up to 50,000 lights, but "I don't really know how many there are," Wilson said.

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Wilson typically begins his drive around sundown and crisscrosses the town. The contraption is powered by a diesel generator, the only sound coming from the display. The train is not accompanied by Christmas music.

"I've never really cared for Christmas music at all," Wilson said. "I like the sound of the generator better. I took the muffler off so that it would be louder so people could hear it."

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