TICKETS for the highly anticipated visit of the Flying Scotsman to Severn Valley Railway have sold out.

Tickets to ride on the historic engine went on sale on Tuesday morning (April 5) at 9am, but more than an hour before users reported problems accessing the website – with those trying to purchase tickets greeted with an error message.

The website ran out of steam and hours after, tickets were only available by calling the box office or by visiting Kidderminster station.

The attraction has now sold out of the 7,000 tickets that were available.

Nick Ralls, general manager, said the demand for tickets had been ‘incredible’.

Mr Ralls said: "Tuesday's ticket sales were unprecedented.

"We knew that Tornado and Flying Scotsman were going to be very popular, but the rate at which the tickets sold out was incredible.

"Our online booking system did struggle with the huge weight of numbers trying to book and our staff, both volunteers and paid worked non-stop to man the phones and serve customers at our front desk, though we would like to apologise to anyone who struggled to get tickets - this really was a one-off event for us, and we have never seen demand like it."

He added that though tickets to travel behind Tornado and Flying Scotsman had sold out within a day, tickets to ride behind some of the SVR's heritage steam locomotives during the event were available.

Severn Valley Railway is due to be one of the first lines in the country to host the Flying Scotsman following its £4.2 million renovation.

The locomotive will be the star attraction at the Autumn Steam Gala – Pacific Power – in September.

Flying Scotsman fans took to the SVR’s Facebook page to express their frustration following the news that all tickets had sold out.

Roz Hickman said: “One extremely disappointed family here. Had we have been given the opportunity to try to get tickets it would not have been so bad.

“But disorganised to the point of mayhem springs to mind. A totally wasted day for many, including myself.”

Richard Lovegrove said: “Given the chaos of trying to get tickets today it’s probably time to invest in a better telephone system and either a website that can handle the demand of special event tickets or outsourcing special event tickets that are predictably going to have ‘unprecedented’ demand to a service that can cope e.g. Ticketmaster.”

Marie Clayton said: “What an absolute disaster and disappointment on both the website and phone line.

“Having tried all day, hopes were temporarily raised when the website finally allowed me to pick a date and time, only for it to instantly crash again and then be told to ring the ticket office number instead.

“There was more chance of getting a golden ticket in a Wonka chocolate bar.”

Andrea Thompson added: “Very disappointed with the sale of these tickets.

“I think you will have lost a lot of goodwill with the way this has been handled.”