Media centre

Wednesday 9 Apr 2025

A new podcast for a national celebration

• ‘Great Rail Tales’ launches as part of 200^th anniversary of the modern railway
• People invited to share rail stories

A new podcast that brings tales from the rails to life launches today (9 April) as part of a national celebration of 200 years of the modern railway.

‘Great Rail Tales’ captures recorded stories from railway people, passengers and the public.  It covers their travelling experiences, encounters and emotions, exploring what the railway means to them, their families and communities.

The first five storytellers featured are:

Siggy Cragwell - recruited from his home in Barbados to work in Britain during the Windrush era, Siggy, a cricket lover, 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. He works at Elstree and Borehamwood station and was awarded a British Empire Medal for exceptional services to the railway.

Ash Bhardwaj - an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author, Ash recalls his first railway memories as 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.

David Meara - has been travelling on the sleeper trains from London to Scotland for over half a century. He recounts the joy, excitement and romance of pulling down your blind in a London terminus one evening and opening it the following morning to the sight of heather clad Highland mountains, deer walking beside the line and peaty rivers racing the train along the track.

Bessie Matthews - as a freight driver for GB Railfreight, Bessie is living her childhood dream. A champion for women in the rail industry, 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.

Ken Davies - first stepped into the cab of a train aged fourth with his dad, also named Ken Davies. What started as a young boy’s passion has become a career lasting over half a century that has taken Ken across the country in just about every class of train. To mark his achievement, train builder Alstom renamed shunter 08721 in his honour. For Ken junior, touching that nameplate was a lifelong thank you to his dad.

More stories will be coming down the track as rail’s anniversary year progresses. Railway 200, the bicentenary campaign, is inviting people to submit their stories at www.railway200.co.uk/get-involved/your-great-rail-tale/

Thomas Evans from Railway 200 said: "Great Rail Tales explores how the railway connects with people and places in all sorts of ways. It’s about shared storytelling. We’d love to hear more stories that can be publicised during the bicentenary and saved for posterity as part of a national narrative archive". 

The Great Rail Tales series is hosted on the Railway 200 website at www.railway200.co.uk/great-rail-tales/- and can be enjoyed on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and other podcast platforms.