In the true spirit of Christmas fun, train commuters this week are being treated to a rather festive journey on-board Virgin Trains’ Traindeer. This is thanks to young sisters Ella and Ruby Prior from Congleton, Cheshire after their artistic vision won a Christmas card competition at Manchester Piccadilly station.
The Pendolino train has been transformed into a reindeer (complete with a red nose!) and will be running along the train network until 9th December.
Ella, aged 11 and Ruby, aged 9 were whisked off to the station by their parents without being told they had not only won the competition, but that the design had impressed judges so much, Virgin Trains had taken steps to actually create their vision for a real-life real Traindeer. They pair were stunned as the Traindeer pulled into the platform they were standing on, with Father Christmas himself stepping off to congratulate them.
Ella Prior said:
“I’m so pleased that our design won and has actually been turned into a real life Traindeer! When we first handed in our entry, we saw lots of other designs and didn’t expect to win at all – so this is brilliant. I’ve never won anything before, so I can’t believe our design has been made into an actual train. It doesn’t feel real. Out of ten, it was a million!”
Ruby Prior, said:
“Wow I can’t believe it! I thought it was a dream. To find out our train will be taking people all over the country? And it’s ours. Wow”
The festive train is expected to play host to nearly 65,000 passengers who will be travelling over the Christmas period, and will be seen by many more passengers at stations.
The winning Christmas cards are on sale in stations: Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke on Trent, Stafford, Crewe, Liverpool and Runcorn, Lancaster, Manchester Piccadilly train from £2 and all proceeds will be donated to the Riff Raff charity, which aims to raise funds for local charitable causes and organisations in the Urmston area.
Have you, like Ella and Ruby, ever won a competition? Get in touch below and tell us about it
