Young train enthusiast from Surrey designs his own collection of Top Trumps celebrating his favourite Great Western Railway stations

Railfan, 11-year-old Max Baker who lives close to Gomshall Station in Surrey, has designed and made several station based collections of Top Trumps inspired by lockdown boredom.

Max’s fantastic cards list stations details such as the original opening dates, facilities, number of trains calling at stations throughout a day, convenience within the station and overall design.

Max’s ‘Route of the GWR’ special edition sees a total of 30 cards made up of 27 main line stations and 3 underground stations from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads.

The Trump Card chosen by Max is the impressive Paddington station, which scores a Train Top Trumps rating of 100, which is due to its magnificent design and the huge number of connections it gives passengers each day.

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Another set of Train Top Trumps made by Max includes the Waterloo to Weymouth lines, the North Downs Line and stations in Cornwall.

Great Western Railway (GWR) already has its own version of Top Trumps cards which include heritage and modern trains. Max’s brilliant designs have been welcomed by Interim Head of Communications Paul Gentleman.

Max has also received a thumbs up from Winning Moves who make the iconic and well loved Top Trumps cards, who were very impressed with his ideas

Max, said: “I got a bit bored during lockdown and wanted something to do. Before I’ve made a Monopoly set with Underground stations and wanted to come up with something else to do with stations, so I thought I’d try Top Trumps.

“I’ve been to a few of the stations but most of the information I got was from different sources online. It takes about 10 minutes to research each station.”

Max’s mum Anna, said: “Some of the Train Top Trumps ratings can cause a bit of debate. His grandad Robert lives on the Waterloo-Weymouth line and that edition does lead to a bit of disagreement!”

Paul Gentleman, GWR Interim Head of Communications, said: “During lockdown we launched our own #EnterTrainment package online to help home-schooling parents keep their children educated and entertained.

“It’s fantastic to see Max using his own initiative and working so hard to create seven different sets of Top Trumps. I’m sure they’d appeal to lots of other train enthusiasts.”

Top Trumps are manufactured by Winning Moves UK and marketing assistant Mia Thornby said: “We always encourage people to send in ideas for possible Top Trumps collections and Max’s designs are just brilliant.

“Our limited edition ‘Trains and Locomotives of the GWR’ proved popular with Top Trumps fans, so a game involving train stations might be something we can explore.

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