Steam Experience

Please contact us (details at the foot of the page) to book, an outline of the options available is given below. All steam driver experiences are on Lady Lisa at present.

We offer a personal experience which is not shared with anyone (unless you choose to book with a friend for the Gold Experience). This means that you get the maximum opportunity to drive during your time with us and we can tailor the experience in line with your requirements.

Option 1 - Bronze £400

You join the loco crew at 14:45 on a normal operating day, riding on the footplate of the 15:00 and 15:30 trains. Here you can learn a little about firing, make up the fire in the station and feed water into the boiler.

After the public have detrained, you take the controls and drive two full trips over the line. The first trip is focussed on learning to control the train with challenges of stopping and starting at various points on differing gradients. The second trip down the line is run at a slightly faster pace and you experience stopping accurately and smoothly from a higher speed. The final trip back is run as a normal end to end non stop run.

Once back at the station, you shunt the stock to platform 1 then up to the side of the locomotive shed, uncouple from the train and drive the loco back to the shed.

Silver experience - £500

Your day starts early at about 6:45am on a normal operating day where you assist in preparation of the loco for service including building the fire and raising steam, oiling up and safety checks.

Once the locomotive is in steam, you drive light engine from the shed to collect the coach, couple up and shunt across to platform 2.

You then have two return trips as per the Bronze experience, then stay on the footplate for the 11:00 and 11:30 trains to do some firing.

Gold experience - £1200 for one person or £700 each for two people sharing.

Carried out on a day when the railway is otherwise closed so you have the line at your full disposal. Starting at 9:30am for preparation and raising steam as for the Silver experience.

You then have the opportunity to do light engine movements, coupling up, shunting and 6 trips up and down the line to include driving and firing. We can offer flexibility in what you want to do, so for example to do more shunting or more on the main line we can tailor the day to your interests. Finish is around 4pm with return to shed and disposal. Debrief and feedback over tea and cake.

To book, please email us at enquiries@lavender-line.co.uk