SANTA in September may be scary but a heritage railway has found tickets are selling like hotcakes for its Christmas Special.

The Wensleydale Railway launched ticket sales for its December Santa Special just last week and on the first day sold over £1,000-worth. Now it is hoping for a bumper year with more than 200 tickets sold so far.

In the past the railway has waited until the beginning of October to launch ticket sales but decided to go for an earlier start. As well as Santa on two days it is hosting the Snow Sisters singing songs from the show Frozen.

Events coordinator Rebekah Jerram admitted by December 25 the shine may well have gone off the Christmas build up.

But she added: “We are so thrilled that people have taken this on board. It’s amazing, but a lot of people like to be well organised for Christmas. Our Santa Special has always been really popular but we never thought we would get this kind of reaction.

“It is such a big thing for a lot of children and meeting Santa on the Wensleydale Railway is hopefully a real bonus. The Christmas Special goes from Leeming Bar to Constable Burton, so it’s around an hour. We run until Christmas Eve and then we have pantomime trains to Leyburn between Christmas and New Year, then we will definitely be having a rest.”

For the concerned though, there are still 110 days to Christmas.