We had our first ride on the Santa Special Heatherslaw to ‘North Pole Station’ at Heatherslaw Light Railway so thought I’d share an honest review.

After our visit in the summer to Heatherslaw Light Railway as soon as I saw their Santa Special advertised I booked tickets immediately for the second Saturday in December.

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About Heatherslaw Light Railway

Aside from being the most northerly known steam railway in England, Heatherslaw Light Railway is also adaptive to the weather: with fully enclosed, partly glazed, and fully open carriage options provided.

This 15 inch gauge railway runs a charming route from Heatherslaw Station across to Etal Castle, totting up a return journey of just under 6.5km with much of it alongside the River Till with gorgeous countryside views.

Carriages are pulled by the steam locomotives ‘Bunty’ and ‘Lady Augusta’, or by the diesel engine ‘Binky’.

The service operates seven days a week in season (1 April-5 November, 2023).

There’s free parking and dogs can also travel for free.

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Santa Special Heatherslaw Light Railway

Heatherslaw is about an hour and a half’s drive away from our home in Country Durham but we left with ample time to secure a parking space and to get our layers on once we arrived.

The snowy weather had been replaced with wind and rain but we were prepared and made sure we were well wrapped up.

We arrived at Heatherslaw about 15 minutes before the Santa Special departure time.

While Elsie and I took the opportunity to get some nice selfies and purchase a flag Steve nipped to the toilet over the bridge.

With more pictures taken our names were ticked off the list and we were shown to our carriage – Dancer!

Despite the rain hammering down nothing could dampen our festive spirit.

We were really pleased to be in a covered carriage protected from the elements.

The nearby river was looking very full and there were parts of the track where it had started to flood.

Our train driver took great care through the more flooded areas of track and we slowed down through those areas.

It did sound a little bit like when the water started to slosh around the Titanic at times!

After a short while of chugging along the lovely Northumberland countryside we reached our destination – the “North Pole”.

As we pulled up to the station we were warmly greeted by Mrs Claus and her megaphone.

We sang some Christmas songs to coax Santa out of his dry grotto onto the wet platform to greet us all.

He came to every carriage and spoke to every family for a few moments before heading off to get the presents for the children.

We also had a visit by Rudolph and Elsie booped his nose.

After singing more Christmas songs it was time to wave goodbye to Santa and his festive friends.

Elsie really loved her present from Santa – a Rudolph teddy.

We really enjoyed riding on the Santa Special and for £16 per person it felt a fair price for a lovely experience.

All the staff were really cheery despite the horrible weather.

The station and train were decked out with Christmas finery.

Elsie really enjoyed the Santa Special and we would recommend it.

Definitely leave yourself plenty of time to get parked up and layered up.

We had thermals on and waterproofs for Elsie and none of us felt cold.

My legs did get a bit wet from the sidways rain when we had to train carriage door open but my jeans soon dried.

After the Santa Special train ride was finished and we peeled our layers off we decided to treat ourselves to lunch at The Red Lion pub which was brilliant I’ll share a review in a future blog post.

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Where is Heatherslaw Light Railway?