Rail Tales Creative Writing Competition

The Heart of England Community Rail Partnership and the Festival are excited to announce the winners of our collaborative competition open to young people cross the UK. The competition was inspired by 200-year of the railways celebrated in 2025.

Young people aged 6 to 21 years were invited to submit short stories inspired by trains or a railway journey for the chance to win an amazing railway-themed bundle of prizes, including a book bundle from independent bookshop Warwick Books.

The entries were judged by representatives of the Heart of England Community Rail Partnership and the Literary Festival as well as the Roald Dahl Funny Prize-winning author and Literary Festival Ambassador Philip Ardagh. Philip is author of over 100 books including Grubtown Tales, The Grunts and National Trust: The Secret Diary series.

“A train journey is a promise of adventure,” he said. “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. 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. 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.”

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 is a wonderful inspiration for storytelling and we were inspired by the entries that came in.

The winners are:

17-21 Category:

1st PLACE: Sanjida Shakhawat (aged 18) for The Train Arrives at Dawn, a wonderfully woven, fable-like tale.

12-16 Category:

1st PLACE: Laurie Bradley (aged 12) for the utterly intriguing The Final Draft.

RUNNER-UP: Jennifer Russell (aged 15) for The Perkins Family, in true ‘Famous Five’ tradition

6-11 Category:

1st PLACE: Elsa Dimambro (aged 8) for the truly splendid Molly the Mail Train Mouse

RUNNER-UP: Yousef Nijib (aged 10) for The Ramblers’ Railway, which cleverly mixed the rail tale of a particular journey with rail travel in general.

The Heart of England CRP is now working with the local Train Operating Companies to get the winning stories on display in stations so that people can delight in the creativity of the entrants and will be sharing excerpts of the winning stories on social media.