Great Rail Tales

When Rajinder Pryor joined the rail industry 20 years ago, she came through the Women in Rail mentoring programme. Today Rajinder leads that programme, giving back to all the women that have followed her over the past two decades. To mark her 20th anniversary in the rail industry, Rajinder went on a very personal pilgrimage to her ancestral home in the Punjab, taking a Railway 200 teddy with her....

Jack Rhodes was shortlisted for Railway Apprentice of the Year at the end of his 3 year apprenticeship with Alstom, where he is now just starting his engineering career in the rail industry.  Following that, Jack was chosen to help seal the official Railway 200 time capsule into the Roundhouse at Derby. The time capsule is packed with anniversary artefacts. It marks this year’s bicentenary and her...

Smith of Derby have been making public clocks around the UK and rest of the world since the 1850s. If you have sought the time from an analogue station clock in a major station it is most likely a Smith of Derby clock. In this Great Rail Tale, Professor Joe Smith talks about what makes him tick, the family business, its heritage, why they have one clock that is always wrong and why he believes tha...

As Linda Brinklow steps down from her role as Chair of the Swale Branch of the Kent Community Rail Partnership, she reflects on a huge year of rail for the community of the Isle of Sheppey, its school children and rail users.

Inspired by Railway 200, YouTuber, Storyteller and documentary maker Riku has produced 2 films around key events and moments in the 200 year history of the rail industry. Their research and narrative has been strongly influenced by the late Ian Marchant; author, broadcaster and rail enthusiast. In this Great Rail Tale, Riku describes how Ian inspired them and raised their hopes for the future of t...

82-year-old Richard Woods was introduced to railway modelling when he was bought a Hornby OO as a young boy. This sparked a passion that took him to his local model railway club and eventually on to the Cavalcade celebrations at Shildon for 150th anniversary of rail. In this Great Rail Tale, Richard recalls that special day on 27th September 1975.

Rail historian and broadcaster Tim Dunn’s connection to the railways goes back to his grandpa who left Tim his many hundreds of railway books when he died when Tim was just a young boy. Tim read about the world through the lens of railway history and it ignited his life long passion for the railways.  His dad worked for British Rail as a surveyor and used to take Tim around the country looking at...

As a young girl Joanne loved spending time with her grandfather in his model workshop. He called her his “firecracker”. He died when Joanne was 13 and her love for the railway went on hold until one day when she was commuting to work and saw a steam engine heading for Preston. That was a sliding doors moment in Joanne’s life, the fire in her for steam engines had just been relit. Joanne went on to...

John Simpson grew up surrounded by and travelling on the New York subway. His passion for trains today is an evolution from his boyhood love of Thomas and Friends that has taken him around the world. In this Great Rail Tale, John describes how it was a visit to the Golden Spike celebrations in 2019 in Utah that made him make a pilgrimage to Shildon, County Durham in this year of national railway c...

The original fast food came from compulsory comfort stops on the early rail network where trains would stop for a few minutes and passengers would jump out, eat several courses in a few minutes and jump back aboard before the train pulled away. These refreshment rooms as they became known gave birth to the railway inn and stations pubs as we know them today. In this Great Rail Tale, author, rail f...

  From the genesis of the idea in early 2022 Emma Roberts has lived and breathed Railway 200 every day since. Early hopes of 100 events across the year quickly exploded into over 5000 celebratory activities across all aspects of rail around the UK. In a personal Great Rail Tale Emma describes how the Whistle-Up bought the reality of the year starkly home for her, how she bought the Inspiration exh...

Mike and Gordon recall the role of the Railway Orphanages. The rail industry hasn’t always been the pioneers of safety they are today. In times gone by, the accident rate in the rail industry was much higher and accidents often very severe. The Railway Orphanages were set up to support and care for the children of railway workers were killed in the process of their days work. Arthur Churchill was...

Sound recordist Adrian Greenwood discovered his combined love of trains and their sounds as a young boy standing on bridges watching freight trains pass underneath him and his father.   In this special Great Rail Tale, Adrian takes us into his sound archive to hear some of his favourite train sounds, including the sound of a prototype Intercity 125 recorded at the 150th anniversary celebrations ca...

  When Ashington Station reopened in December 2024, having been closed as part of the Beeching cuts, the impact of the railway on this north east town has been more than ever imagined, it has been described as life changing for the community. The town was home to World Cup winners Jack and Bobby Charlton, along with fellow footballer Jackie Milburn. Cricketers Steve Harmison and Mark Wood are also...

Railway 200 has caused Clare Wildfire to reflect and reconnect with her ancestral legacy of industrialist Edward Pease, one of the leading lights in the launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Edward Pease was visionary in being able to project into the future about how the railway will change lives and communities.   Today Clare is involved in shaping the future of the rail network by exam...

Folk singer songwriter Findlay Napier recalls writing “Firecracker”, a song he wrote about Joanne Ormesher as part of BBC Radio 2’s 21st Century folk project which this year celebrated Railway 200, turning rail stories into songs, written and performed by top musicians like Findlay. Listen to Firecracker and all of the 21st Century Folk songs celebrating Railway 200 here

Driver and Permanent Way operative Steve Williams drives a train like no other in the country. With a top speed of 6.5 mph, a maximum gradient of 20% and with no connection between the engine and passenger carriage, the Snowdon Mountain Railway opened in 1896 and has been carrying tourists and day trippers to summit of Snowdon ever since. After a trip to the top, Steve describes to veteran railway...

The train is a place of reading says Dr Bob Nicholson, Historian of Victorian Culture. Time spent on the train has always been used as a time to read. Today that might be on a smartphone, but before news apps, audio books and digital readers, rail travellers would buy newspapers, books and specifically edited journals and magazines designed for the rail traveller. This platform economy led to the...

Sherin Aminossehe arrived in the UK as a young 6 year old girl. Her love of the railway was almost immediately piqued on a family holiday to Torquay. Today Sherin is an architect and an artist; it was a drawing project during lockdown that started her thinking about station clocks and the connections that people make as they meet under them. From Terry and Julie in Waterloo, to Del Boy meeting Raq...

Talyllyn Railway volunteer Luke Ryan describes the history and heritage of the world’s first preserved heritage railway. Originally built to transport slate down from the North Wales mines it was also designed with passengers in mind. Despite all the changes to the rail industry over the centuries, Talyllyn has remined independent and in 1951 it was taken over to be preserved by the Talylln Railwa...

Did you know that the railway provides one of nature’s unique corridors, abundant with plants and wildlife? Far from being isolated boundary strips of land, the trackside is alive with flora and fauna. This unique habitat provides an environment for both rare and unique plant life. Dr Neil Strong is the Biodiversity Strategy Manager for Network Rail and in this Great Rail Tale he describes how the...

Alan Ross, Engineering and Asset Manager for Network rail in Scotland takes us a journey over the iconic Forth Bridge.  From his first impressions as a 17 year in awe of the bridge, through to today he was part of the team who made the case for why the bridge should be recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. At just under 2.5km in length, with 6.5 million rivets, standing 110m high and weig...

A passion for history and his natural curiosity led Colin Haynes, Director of Environment, Health and Safety at Alstom, to research into the stories of the names on the war memorials at the Crewe works site. What started as a winter project has become much bigger, unearthing stories of Railway factory workers who gave their lives in both World Wars. People like Jeramiah Wilkinson who was one of th...

People are fundamental to the railways - none more so than the staff who keep everything moving. But how do we find out about railway workers of 100 or more years ago? What was working life like for them? And how did an innovative safety campaign spread from the railways to influence British society? University of Portsmouth historian Dr Mike Esbester explores these questions, using the Railway Wo...