ISABELLE Carroll and Dawn Graham from Ayr have both been named winners of the Virgin Trains’ Train of the Future’ competition. 

The two 10-year-olds’ innovative ideas and designs are set to be used by the train operator to inspire the development of its Azuma trains, coming to the east coast in 2018.

Virgin Trains asked children to imagine what trains would be like in decades to come and Isabelle and Dawn’s drawings were amongst the six winning designs, which included floor-to-ceiling clear walls for optimal viewing, double decker layout to maximise capacity, 20-plus-seater business booths for meetings on the move, and fully digitised carriages for at-your-fingertips service. 

Isabelle’s idea explores sustainability with her solar powered train, which also benefits from minimised wheel-track contact for super smooth in-journey motion. Dawn re-imagines the train as a revolutionary magnetic pod system, which detaches individual pods at customers’ desired destinations, leading to reduced dwell developed by professional designers into a full concept designs. 

Virgin Trains is now set to use these designs as inspiration for the development of its Azuma trains, coming to the east coast in 2018. Set to revolutionise travel on the east coast, the Azuma will be one of the most advanced trains on the UK’s rail network, and will embody the customer-centric approach which Virgin Trains is famous for.

David Horne, Managing Director of Virgin Trains on the East Coast, said: “The Virgin Azuma is set to be the most state of the art train on the network when it arrives in 2018 so what better way to celebrate this than to work with our younger customers to find out what they would like to see on our exciting new trains.

"Isabelle and Dawn’s ideas have given us a refreshing outlook on what the future could hold and will help us towards our goal of revolutionising every element of our customers’ experiences.”