The Battlefield Line

What travelers say:

We recently booked and attended a much anticipated Santa train experience at the Battlefield Line at Shackerstone Railway. The outing was arranged for our children who were very excited about meeting Santa and going on there first train ride, unfortunately the whole experience left our kids very upset and somewhat bemused of the atmosphere missing from the event in what should be an exciting and magical time for them. From the adults perspective we were very disappointed in the value for money as £160 for 4 adults 4 children in a small carriage with no luxury . We did expect a traditional train and a reminder of how trains rides were in times gone by, we also appreciate the hard work that the members of staff go through to maintain and keep the station as it was many years ago however the Santa experience was somewhat lacking Christmas spirit and the enthusiasm you would expect. We also expected the show / experience to be led by the staff as we were the guests not to be the people creating the show, Santa only asked the kids their names and what they wanted for Christmas and stood there expecting us to do the talking and left quickly after. The example I can give on how far this was away from a magical Santa experience was that my son told Santa we were in the train to see Santa as he didn’t realise even that this was Santa!!! . Santa visited us in the first 5 mins it was a young man with no enthusiasm and his costume looked awful we were then left alone other than to receive our drinks order for the rest of the 90 mins! no activities no one trying to jolly up the kids etc Our 2 year old was given a present suitable for a 6-12 month old – some boring in the night garden foam bath characters which she showed no interest in. Many People had commented on ‘Atmosphere’ on reviews but we experienced no sure thing as there was No Christmas music on the train and we even resorted to using our phones to generate some warm feeling of Christmas when we had signal