The Christmas Tree Ship (EP)

The Christmas Tree Ship is the second EP by I Like Trains. It was released on 24 November 2008.

It is an entirely instrumental concept album, based on the storm that sank the Rouse Simmons.

The Rouse Simmons was a schooner that for twenty years delivered Christmas trees to Chicago, until on the night of November 23, 1912 it was lost in a storm on Lake Michigan, with all hands and a full cargo of Christmas trees.

The five track titles relate to different aspects of the story.

• The Christmas Tree Ship is about the sinking of the Rouse Simmons itself.
• South Shore, Two Brothers and Three Sisters were the names of three other ships that sank the same night.
• Friday, Everybody Goodbye is the opening sentence of a message in a bottle thrown into the sea by the captain of the Rouse Simmons.

The album was released as a limited-edition CD and DVD, but the general release was only as an MP3 download. Since then, I Like Trains have made the album a one-track EP for download.