All Aboard for Charity

Dec. 1, 2025

A New York council’s custom train car initiative raises funds while promoting faith, patriotism and the true meaning of Christmas

By Cecilia Engbert

Dec. 1, 2025

Keep Christ in Christmas-themed model boxcars roll along the O-gauge track layout at the Railroad Museum of Long Island. (Photo by Gregory A. Shemitz)

As K of C-branded model trains wend their way through the colorful layout in the Railroad Museum of Long Island, Frank Kotnik checks the controls and straightens a car on the track. In that moment, he’s transported back to Christmases from his childhood in the 1960s, when he and his father created similar displays in his family’s basement.

Nearly 60 years after receiving his first Lionel train set as a child, Kotnik, a member of Msgr. Sherman Council 5103 in Glendale, Queens, remains an avid model train enthusiast — a passion he shares with brother Knights through the council’s annual boxcar fundraiser.

The idea took shape a decade ago during a visit to the same Long Island museum, where Kotnik was struck by a display of commemorative train cars produced for various organizations. As he spoke with the museum director, a crossing light of inspiration switched on.

“The Keep Christ in Christmas campaign was always very important to me,” Kotnik said. “And as I was talking to the museum director, I thought, ‘This would be a great idea to create a Christmas fundraiser.’”

Since Council 5103 already promoted the Order’s Keep Christ in Christmas program every year, Kotnik saw it as a perfect opportunity to enhance the council’s charitable activity during the Christmas season. After gaining the support of his brother Knights, Kotnik designed the first boxcar with the assistance of Don Fisher, the railroad museum director, and produced the first Keep Christ in Christmas-themed boxcar in 2018.

Bearing a striking Nativity scene on its side, the deep blue Lionel O-scale boxcar was an immediate hit with Knights, parishioners and train collectors of all backgrounds. Since then, the boxcars have become a cherished tradition for Council 5103, which has earned a reputation as “the train council.”

“All I wanted was to produce one, but since 2018, we’ve produced 12 designs,” Kotnik said. “These are the same Lionel trains that kids got back in the ’50s, the ’60s and the ’70s, and they’re manufactured exclusively for the Knights of Columbus.”

MISSION ON TRACK

Every penny that Council 5103 raises from the boxcars is donated to Knights of Columbus Charities Inc. or directed to other causes supported by the Order. The council has sold nearly 2,200 cars to date, raising more than $37,000 for a range of initiatives — including the Order’s Christian Refugee Relief Fund, Ukraine Solidarity Fund, disaster relief efforts and Special Olympics. Most recently, proceeds were used to assist victims of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and to aid a brother Knight from another council who was paralyzed in a skiing accident.

“Over half the money has gone to Christian Refugee Relief,” said Ken Engesser, council treasurer. “That was always the vision of this project — that our primary function would be to sell trains throughout the United States to give back to a global need supported by the Order.”

Not only are the boxcars unique collectibles, but they also serve as tools for evangelization, since many buyers are non-Catholic or even non-Christian. The Knights hope that these religiously themed boxcars will remind all who see them that Christmas is more than just another holiday.

“Christmas isn’t just the presents — it’s about the presence of Christ in our lives,” Kotnik said. “We lost the meaning of Christmas at one time, and it’s coming back again.”

Frank Kotnik adjusts one of the K of C-themed engines used to pull the many festive boxcars he and his brother Knights have designed. (Photo by Gregory A. Shemitz)

While Council 5103 strives to promote and live that message year-round — not just in December — Grand Knight Chris Russo noted that the initiative invites reflection and renewal.

“This train program has allowed us to focus and take a pause each year, to be reminded that Christmas is really not a one-day event,” he said. “It’s a daily reality that Christ has come into the world to call us to live in a deeper relationship.”

The project also illustrates how Knights can bring their personal talents into the mission of the Order. Engesser pointed to the boxcar initiative as an example of creativity put in service of others.

“It’s unique, and it’s outside of what you might normally see the Knights of Columbus doing,” he said. “It’s a message to other councils, who can ask their members, ‘What are your hobbies? What do you like and enjoy?’ Maybe there are other people out there of a similar mind, and you could tap into that.”

Kotnik is an innovator by nature. During his career as a blacksmith for the New York City Department of Transportation, he designed and manufactured sign brackets and fencing for use throughout the city, including more than 100 brackets along Sixth Avenue in Manhattan that hold the iconic national medallions lining “The Avenue of the Americas.”

In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, he not only worked overtime to build and install signs rerouting traffic around the destruction, but also volunteered at Ground Zero, working through the night to cut steel for removal.

While Christmas has been the primary focus of the council’s boxcar initiative, Kotnik has also designed cars commemorating significant milestones of faith and patriotism. These include a boxcar marking the beatification of Blessed Michael McGivney in 2020; another celebrating the Knights’ support for the 1954 addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance; and one honoring the Order’s 140th anniversary in 2022.

FAITH IN MOTION

In 2024, Kotnik was invited to design a boxcar commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Order’s Fourth Degree.

When the original edition quickly sold out, Council 5103 commissioned a second design to mark the anniversary celebration held on Feb. 22, 2025, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

“After I got the call to design the Fourth Degree edition, in less than two hours I had the rough draft ready,” said Kotnik, who is also a member of Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone USMC Assembly 4020 in Glendale.

The limited-edition car featured images from the first Patriotic Degree on Feb. 22, 1900, as well as from the 2025 exemplification at St. Patrick’s.

Supreme Master Michael McCusker is pictured with members of Msgr. Sherman Council 5103 at the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center in New Haven, Conn., June 25. He holds a collectible boxcar commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Fourth Degree. (Photo by Mike Ross)

In June, Kotnik and fellow council members visited New Haven, Connecticut, and presented a prototype of the boxcar to Supreme Master Michael McCusker, a train enthusiast whose family worked for generations on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Council 5103 then promoted the train and collected orders for a shipment to be delivered in time for Christmas.

“What is exceptional about these boxcars is that they speak to our history as Knights of Columbus,” Supreme Master McCusker said. “They continue to promote the importance of the Keep Christ in Christmas program but have also provided opportunities to both celebrate Blessed Michael McGivney’s beatification and promote the Fourth Degree’s 125th anniversary.”

He added: “Trains built this great nation just as the Knights of Columbus built inroads for many who were once disenfranchised. The boxcars are a reminder of how the Knights have kept men on the rails for nearly 150 years in their lives of faith and fraternity.”

Because of the time and resources required to produce the Fourth Degree anniversary boxcars, Council 5103 had to forgo a Christmas boxcar for 2025. Yet, plans are underway for next year’s Christmas car, along with potential designs for one or more cars celebrating Holy Week and Easter in April 2026.

“I’m always looking to go onward and upward,” Kotnik said, sharing that he has already prepared designs which feature Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper painting and Michaelangelo’s Pietà. “It all depends on what kind of response we get, but I’m very optimistic.”

Kotnik has one other design on deck that anticipates the hope and prayer of Knights worldwide — the canonization of Blessed Michael McGivney.

“I already have that boxcar designed,” he said. “So, if and when that happens, I’ll be ready.”

For more information, visit kofc5103.org/trains

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CECILIA ENGBERT is a content producer for the Knights of Columbus Communications Department.

Members of St. Philip the Apostle Council 17028 pack some of the 250 Boxes of Joy

All Aboard for Charity

MISSION ON TRACK

FAITH IN MOTION

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