Continuity mistake: Throughout the movie, the number of cars the train has changes. The scene where Hero Girl's ticket is surrounded by a pack of wolves shows the train having around 20 cars, but the scene where the train's on the ice shows it having 5.
The Polar Express (2004)
Plot summary
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Chris Coppola, Leslie Zemeckis
A boy experiences doubt in Santa after his younger sister brings it up, and he falls asleep on Christmas Eve with this question in mind. His thoughts materialize in a dream led by the conductor of the Polar Express train who resembles his father. Both his mind and the events of the Polar bound train travel the ups and downs twists and turns of the idea of what is necessary for belief. We witness the child of strength and the child of noncommittal, along with joys and distraction of his Christmas Eve dream. What present do you take with you?
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Suggested correction: The entire journey is likely just a dream. There are many things in the movie that cannot happen in the "real" world, and the number of cars changing is just another aspect of the dreamlike nature of the trip.
Conductor: Sometimes seeing is believing. And sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see.
Trivia: The ticket that gets lost often times floats almost exactly like the feather does in the beginning of "Forrest Gump" (1994), another Robert Zemeckis-Tom Hanks film.
Question: How would the train have been able to go back the same way with the ice on the lake cracking?
Answer: Because it's a magic train.