The Christmas Tree Ship is the second EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 by I Like Trains. It was released on 24 November 2008.

It is an entirely instrumental concept album

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

, based on the storm that sank the Rouse Simmons

Rouse Simmons

The Rouse Simmons was a three-masted schooner famous for having sunk in a violent storm on Lake Michigan in 1912. The ship was bound for Chicago with a cargo of Christmas trees when it foundered off the coast of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, killing all on board....

.

The Rouse Simmons was a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

 that for twenty years delivered Christmas trees to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, until on the night of November 23 1912 it was lost in a storm on Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

, 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
  Rouse Simmons
  The Rouse Simmons was a three-masted schooner famous for having sunk in a violent storm on Lake Michigan in 1912. The ship was bound for Chicago with a cargo of Christmas trees when it foundered off the coast of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, killing all on board....
  
   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
  Message in a bottle
  A message in a bottle is a form of communication whereby a message is sealed in a container and released into the sea or ocean...
  
  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.

Track listing

1. "The Christmas Tree Ship"
2. "South Shore"
3. "Two Brothers"
4. "Three Sisters"
5. "Friday, Everybody Goodbye"