With the UK gearing up to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the modern railway in 2025, Heart of England Community Rail Partnership (CRP) has announced the winners of a competition to inspire the authors of the future.

‘Rail Tales’ was a national competition in collaboration with the Stratford Literary Festival that asked young people aged 6-21 to submit fiction stories of no more than 1,000 words inspired by trains, the railways or a railway journey.

The entries were judged by representatives from Heart of England CRP and Stratford Literary Festival, as well as festival ambassador and winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize Philip Ardagh. Philip is the author of over 100 books including Grubtown Tales, The Grunts and National Trust: The Secret Diary series.

The winners are:

• 17-21 category
  • 1^st place: Sanjida Shakhawat (aged 18) for ‘The Train Arrives at Dawn’.
• 12-16 category
  • 1^st place: Laurie Bradley (aged 12) for ‘The Final Draft’.
  • Runner-up: Jennifer Russell (aged 15) for ‘The Perkins Family’.
• 6-11 category
  • 1^st place: Elsa Dimambro (aged 8) for ‘Molly the Mail Train Mouse’.
  • Runner-up: Yousef Nijib (aged 10) for ‘The Ramblers’ Railway’.

Author Philip Ardagh said: “I was delighted to be asked to judge the festival’s writing competition in association with the Heart of England Community Rail Partnership to highlight 200 years of rail travel in 2025.

“A good story is like a train journey with a beginning, a middle and an end – some hurtling towards their destination, some taking their time, meandering onto branch lines, offering unexpected twists and turns.

“A train journey is a promise of adventure. Even if you think you know where you’re going, you can never be quite sure who you might meet or what might happen along the way.”

Annie Ashworth, Stratford Literary Festival director, said: “We were delighted to be part of this competition. The festival is a charity and our aim is to encourage young people to write, so this was perfect for us! Trains and train travel are wonderful inspiration for storytelling, and we were inspired by all the entries that came in.”

Heart of England CRP is now working with local train operating companies to display the winning stories at stations. 

Keep up to date with future news, projects and events from the Heart of England CRP via their website.