Loco no 1 was commissioned to celebrate the Bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in September 2025. I was part of the Avanti Display devising team, we won the bid to devise and present the 200th Anniversary celebrations in both towns. It was a three year project culminating in the presentation of a show in each town set a week apart from each other. The Avanti team was Bill Palmer, Bryan Tweddle, Chris Squire, Jane Revitt and myself with early input from Steve Gumbley.

The Loco had to be built to be capable of performing in several different situations.

It had to be able to drive along the road in a procession. Be able to rise 2.5m into the air so that it appeared as if it was on a plinth and finally be light enough to be winched 12m up a scaffolding structure to perform the show’s final pyrotechnics piece.

The solution was to mount the loco on a mini telehandler.

The Construction team was myself along with the talented Donna Ramsden and Mile Randelovic. Electronic control Nick Sparks.

Ghost Train was commissioned to celebrate the Bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in September 2025. I was part of the Avanti Display devising team, we won the bid to devise and present the 200th Anniversary celebrations in both towns. It was a three year project culminating in the presentation of a show in each town set a week apart from each other. The Avanti team was Bill Palmer, Bryan Tweddle, Chris Squire, Jane Revitt and myself with early input from Steve Gumbley.

The main core of the show was the Ghost Train, this was led by Loco no 1 and followed by a series of 7 Nissan Micra’s which represented the the original carriages from 200 years ago. Each Micra carriage contained an installation that represents an invention from the last 200 years and has an accompanying street show about the invention.

Bryan Tweddle brought his genius skills to the design and construction of the carriages.

Other carriage creators were Doug Nicholson, Graeme Leak and Steve Gumbley.

The Micra car was chosen for it’s cartoon shape. A representation of the original carriage was bolted to the roof, along with a staircase for the performers to get access.

The Micra’s were put through a series of tests to prove that they could carry the extra weight. We tested our roof attachment system and the load carrying capacity by adding 2 x IBC water containers weighing 800 kilos. This weight was intentionally much more than we had planned for the carriage installations but we had to prove that the design was safe.

Creative engineers Mile Randelovic and Donna Ramsden were a crucial part of the team, offering their unique skills and support to the project.