Couple convert train carriage into holiday let

SWNS

Andrea Pearman, 53, and Richard Coleman, 65, transformed a Great Western Railway coach into a rural £175 a night staycation spot in 2022.  The carriage, in Little Downham, UK, features the original seats, windows, luggage racks, and even its emergency stop handle.  Their first attempt to get retrospective planning permission for the holiday accommodation was refused in 2022.  However in March, the council agreed permissions after reviewing a new application bolstered by guests flocking to the carriage.

Transcript

00:00So I'm Andrea, and this is Richard. We're at the carriage Ely, near Ely, and we're in Paddington,

00:07or Paddington Carriage. It's a converted GWR carriage that we've converted to a holiday let.

00:14So the story of how we ended up with a carriage, we went to a local friend's barbeque,

00:19and he happened to have a carriage in the garden, that was about August time.

00:23And just after quite a few drinks, I joke and he said, oh, can you get me one?

00:29And nothing more was said, and then April, we got a phone call, your carriage will be here tomorrow.

00:34And then the panic button, what have we done?

00:38And we could see it arriving down the hill, so we walked up,

00:42and it managed to get in the gates in one move.

00:46And then they laid a false line down, and it's sitting now on its own track.

00:51And then what do we do? The ideas then had to evolve as to how we converted it,

00:56literally as it's come off the track, full of graffiti, full of rubbish.

00:59It was quite grimy, wasn't it?

01:02Yeah, and we'd never done, well, no one had done a train before to convert it into a holiday let,

01:08so we didn't have a clue.

01:11So then was the task of converting it.

01:15So first of all, we had all the gubbins that make the train work, that we didn't actually need anymore.

01:22So those were donated to the Heritage Line, and hopefully that's brought another carriage back to life.

01:27Then we had all the seats, and the carpets, and the luggage racks, what do we do with those?

01:32And we managed to sell those to Apple TV.

01:36That's gone to be a film set for Slow Horses.

01:39Nothing's been wasted, we haven't thrown anything away.

01:42Yeah, they had the toilets, bins, sinks.

01:45The water tanks that came out of the shower, we've turned into seating outside.

01:50And then we had the job of designing how we wanted to lay it out.

01:54So the carriage had its own little toilet area, but it was too small, we couldn't get a shower in there.

02:00So we wanted to move the toilet, but we had to then cut a new waste pipe,

02:04but the train floor is solid steel.

02:07To actually cut through was quite a task.

02:10So we wanted to make just a nice couple retreat that people could come here and chill out and unwind.

02:17So we just wanted a king size bed, didn't we?

02:20We thought we could reuse the seating, this nice dining area.

02:23Tiny little kitchen, just enough to keep you going for a couple of days.

02:27But we wanted a nice big shower in the bathroom, so we made the bathroom quite big to get a nice shower.

02:34So the carriage was decommissioned in 21, and we got her in 22.

02:40And we've split it in half, the route it used to drive was Paddington to Penzance,

02:44so we've called one end Paddington and the other end Penzance.

02:48We're in Paddington now.

02:50Penzance is done more of a luxury theme, so I've gone for velvet and fabrics.

02:55So the same layout, but different decor.

02:58Penzance, you've got the pond view from the top of the stairs and a big hot tub.

03:03So there's loads of quirky little touches that you'll find if you come and stay.

03:07We've added some sound effects in here, the emergency pull cord.

03:11I know as a kid I always wanted to pull that cord, and now you can.

03:22There's little touches of graffiti that you'll find when you come and stay.

03:25The original telephone in the foyer that you guard with speak to the driver.

03:33We've managed to add some effects to that and bring that back to life.

03:37So we got her in 21 and honestly made a genuine mistake.

03:42We didn't think we needed planning because it's moveable.

03:45She came on a lorry and could leave on a lorry, not a permanent fixture.

03:49However, it turns out we did do need planning, so we put in a planning application.

03:55Sadly, the council turned us down on the grounds that we're in the country,

04:00they don't support any development in the country and there isn't a need for it.

04:05So then we thought, actually there is a need, we're open and we're booked.

04:10So we put in a new application with more supporting evidence

04:14and thankfully they've changed their minds and we now have our full planning permission.

04:20So we can stay and carry on.

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