Great Rail Tales

Children’s author Matt Crossfield describes how experiencing the hiss, wheeze and roar of the steam railway at Dean Forest Railway for the first time ignited a lifelong passion in him. Matt started volunteering on the railway at just 8 years old as a travelling ticket inspector at Dean Forest before his first driving experience at Perrygrove Railway. Today he volunteers at Tinton Old Railway stati...

Fiona Campbell recalls a lifetime of memories of travelling on the Caledonian Sleeper spanning childhood holidays to hen weekends to trips to London with family.

Kyla Hislop, interpretation curator for the Iron Bridge Gorge Museum Trust, shares her passion for making our industrial history come alive through telling the stories of innovation and discovery which have helped shape the modern world. She tells the tale of how the invention of the railways allowed fresh fish to be transported around the UK, fuelling the Victorian passion for Fish n Chips, a pas...

A lifelong railway man who’s story goes back 150 years to his great great grandfather who started a family tradition of working on the railways.  Thanks to the railway, Paul met his wife, named his sons and has enjoyed a lifetime of close friendships, connections and precious memories including the time he made the late Queen laugh!

Matt shares an emotional and heartfelt story of how the railway gave his partner’s son Ruben his first smile and real laugh in 4 years. 14 year old Ruben has a life-limiting condition but the railway has become a shared passion for Ruben and his ‘bonus daddy’, Matt, allowing them a way to make precious memories when they know time is much too short for them all.

Born and bought up near The Bentham Line, today Gerald Townson is the Chairman of the Leeds Morecambe Community Rail Partnership, which includes The Bentham Line, which is celebrating its 175th year at the same time as the Railway 200 celebrations. The Bentham Line has been become known as the dementia friendly line for its efforts on inclusivity and community for people living with dementia and t...

An active volunteer guard on the Corris Railway and lifelong rail enthusiast, Stephen’s passion for the steam railways started in the 1960’s, travelling from Birmingham’s Snow Hill station to Reading where he would visit his grandad Wilfred. His enthusiasm for the railway has taken him on trains around the world. But it is his connection to Wilfred, a GWR clock maker that makes this story special...

Norman and Marjorie Fairy lived most of their lives in Sutton Coldfield, their house backing onto the railway line. A silver dish on their mantlepiece had always fascinated Rupert when he would stay with his grandparents. On 23rd January 1955 Marjorie heard a huge crash from the line. She rushed out and looking down the line saw the aftermath of a huge crash. She ran to help, but knowing the timet...

Founder and CEO of innovative renewable energy company, Treeva, Anjali Devadasan is exploiting the wind turbulence caused by passing trains to generate predictable renewable power on the rail network. The technology has been proven on the roadside and is now appearing trackside. With double the energy efficiencies and increased durability Treeva’s trackside wind turbines generate enough electricit...

Executive Director of Finance and Operations at Alzheimer’s Research UK, one of the charities supported by Railway 200, Philip’s love of trains goes right back to Shildon and his school days at the Timothy Hackworth Primary school. His father and grandfather worked at the local wagon works which meant he benefitted from free rail travel. Family holidays were long train rides from the northeast of...

As a young boy in Costa Rica while Samuel loved playing with his model trains, he always dreamed of seeing a steam train in real life. His models gave him more than joy though, they gave him hope during periods of difficulty with his mental health. It was watching the Talyllyn Railway You Tube channel that persuaded him to travel across the world to see his first steam train. Arriving in North Wal...

Writer and broadcaster Dan Richards has a fascination with the night. Inspired by his grandfather, Robert Daniel Butler who worked on the Travelling Post Office (TPO) train between Bristol and Plymouth his love of these unique and vital sorting offices was born. A meticulously planned and timed operation, the TPOs would collect, sort and drop mail while travelling at speed across the country. Alth...

Railway enthusiast and performance poet, Lizzie Lovejoy takes us on a journey through her poetry into some of the lives of the people she has met as she spends her time travelling the rail network collecting stories up and down the line at Darlington. To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tales visit our website:  https://railway200.co.uk/

Scott’s mum and dad were crossing keepers at a station so his Great Rail Tale began long before he was born. Day to day and family revolved around the timetable and life at the station they called home for 40 years. By 10 years old, Scott was volunteering at the station and jumping on the trains to go up and down the line with the drivers. Today Scott is a station adopter at his “home” station kee...

Recently retired Alistair Johnson describes historical links between the railway and abolition of the slave trade. To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tales visit our website:  https://railway200.co.uk/

Father and son, Mike and Andrew Lamport are just the latest generation of Lamports to be working on the UK rail network. Their family’s connection however to the rails can be traced back to 1846 when Mike's Great Great Grandfather became a guard at Waterloo. Can you trace your family connection to the railways further back than Mike and Andrew? To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to m...

Vice President of Middleton Railway Trust, Ian Smith explains how the railway standardised time across the country. From Kent to Kendal, from Penzance to Perth railway time bought the entire network and nation together to operate smoothly and in synchronicity wherever you were. To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tales visit our website:  https://railway200.co.uk/

A lifelong passion for the railways led Adam to develop his career on the network. Today he is the founder of the Neurodiversity in Transport network and in 2024 was the Young Rail Professionals Volunteer of the year. As a systems support manager he has developed a model profile of every tunnel in the UK that examines the acoustic characteristics of each tunnel. But why is this important? For peop...

Railway Mission Chaplain Andrew shares some of the more amusing encounters of his life and career providing support to railway industry staff who are going through difficult times. To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tales visit our website:  https://railway200.co.uk/

Railway Mission Chaplain to Northeast England, Helen has spent the last decade providing a listening ear to railway staff at stations from Berwick to Thirsk, from Carlisle to Whitby. Every day is different and the surprises are varied, for Helen though it is giving her support and care to those that need it that drives her on. To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tal...

Recruited from his home in Barbados to work in Britain during the Windrush era, Siggy Cragwell had a passion for the railways. He started working on steam trains in March 1962 and in the following 63 years he has worked across the network, every day enlivened by the people he meets and talks to.   To find out more about Railway 200 and to listen to more Great Rail Tales visit our website: https://...

David Meara has been travelling on the sleeper trains from London to Scotland for over half a century. In this Great Rail Tale, David recalls the joy, excitement and romance of pulling down your blind in a grubby, dirty terminus one evening and reopening it the following morning to the sight of heather clad Highland mountains, deer walking beside the line and peaty rivers racing the train along th...

As a freight driver for GB Railfreight, Bessie Matthews is living her childhood dream. A champion for women in the rail industry, Bessie drives a 66 Class from Southampton to Birmingham. In her Great Rail Tale, she describes the tranquillity of being in the cab and her passion to pass on her skills and experience to other women learning to become train drivers. To find out more about Railway 200 a...

Ken Davies first stepped into the cab of a train aged 4 with his dad Ken Davies. He first drove one when he was 12, when he’d go to work with his dad. What started as a young boy’s passion has become a career lasting over half a century that has taken Ken Davies across the country in a just about every class of train. To mark his achievement, the shunter 08721 was renamed Ken Davies in his honour....

Award winning journalist, broadcaster and author Ash Bhardwaj shares his lifelong passion for the railways.  It all started when he was a young boy, travelling through India with his family, a multi-sensory journey of discovery through his father’s homeland.  Railways, Ash believes, give you access to culture and conversation like no other form of transport and his journeys by rail across the glob...