Riley Weed tries to scramble up Thomas the Train, a snow sculpture created by her dad, Joel, and her Aunt Sara, for the town’s contest. Keaton gets a hand from his dad to get up the icy train. The pair spent 25 hours on the entry. The winners will be announced in March.

Joel Weed wasn’t expecting to take nearly 25 hours on his snow sculpture, it just happened.

The Princess Street man and his sister, Sara, were just one of the dozens of teams who created snow cartoon characters in their yards for the contest sponsored by the Town of Petrolia.

Weed was inspired by his son Keaton’s love of Thomas the Train. He grabbed on of his figurines and headed out side. He used his snow blower to create a giant pile of snow in the front yard, took out the chain saw and he and Sara got to work.

“After three or four hours in I thought ‘I think I made this too big’ but once a couple of people stop by and say ‘I can’t wait to see it finished,’ you’re committed.”

While Weed and his sister worked, they had an audience; his son, Keaton, spent hours at the window watching and neighbours would stop by to see how the first-time carvers were doing; even drivers, slowed down.

“Usually we have a problem with people not stopping at the corner,” says Jen Weed and another car slowed to a crawl and people peered out to get a look at Thomas.  “Not now.”

Once the sculpture was posted on the town’s Facebook page, there were people questioning whether there was a family of professional carvers in town. Joel laughs; “We’ve never done this before.”

And he says he will do it again but “next year we’ll maybe scale it down a bit.”