Community Rail Awards 2025 now open for Entries! Click here to read more.

Community Rail News – 5 August 2026

Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Community Rail Network newsletter.

It’s been an exciting start to the week as we welcome Bill Freeman as our new chief executive. Having officially joined us on Monday, he’s already hit the ground running meeting community rail partnerships in Scotland, with visits to meet members from Wales and in London also in the diary this week. We know many of you will have the chance to meet Bill over the coming weeks and months, and we’re looking forward to seeing those relationships continue to grow.

This week also sees the launch of All Aboard, our brand-new podcast hosted by Chris Birks and Erin Kelly from our policy and communications team. Through conversations with guests from across the movement, we’ll be busting myths about community rail, showcasing the incredible work happening in communities across Britain, and introducing community rail to new audiences. We hope you’ll tune in, subscribe and help spread the word.

And finally, a reminder that Days Out by Rail is now live. The campaign is all about inspiring people to discover fantastic destinations by train this summer, while highlighting the unique local experiences our members help make possible. There’s still time to get involved, so if your partnership has a great rail day out to share, we’d love to hear from you.

As always, thank you for everything you do to make community rail such a positive force in communities across Britain. 

Best wishes
Jeremy and Bill

2027 Community Rail Awards Hub

Our Awards Hub is now live on the website and is the one-stop-shop for everything you need to guide you through the Community Rail Awards entry process. Have an explore of the page and familiarise yourself with all the information ahead of entries opening on Tuesday 1 September. Please contact the Events team if you have any questions.

Upcoming sessions

We have several online training and networking sessions coming up:

  • Tourism Network: Thursday 6 August, 10-11:30am. Hear from Southeast Communities Rail Partnership and Whistlestop Arts about their podcast and film series promoting the Arun Valley Line to visitors. Email Alice for details.
  • Sharpen your outcomes: Wednesday 12 August, 2-3pm, and Thursday 27 August, 10-11am. These drop-in sessions are for members to talk through their projects and refine their outcomes, with support from our training and development team. Register here and here.
  • Education Network:
    • Wednesday 19 August, 10-11am. This session will explore Community Rail Lancashire’s ‘Car or Nah’ youth engagement project, as well as looking at data collection and social value. Details here.
    • Wednesday 16 September, 10-11:30am. This webinar-style session will explore how community rail can seize further opportunities when rail safety becomes mandatory on the PSHE National Curriculum in September. Register here.
  • ‘On Track for inclusive train travel’: Thursday 17 September, 12-1pm. Join this webinar to hear about the key learnings from the ‘On Track’ project, as well as potential opportunities and next steps for community rail partnerships and groups interested in making rail travel more accessible and inclusive for disabled people. Register here.
  • Integrated Sustainable Transport discussion group: Thursday 1 October, 10:30am-12pm. Hear more from Northern and Great Western Railway about their active travel work and integrated transport strategies. Details here.

Your next bulletin is on 19 August. Keep up-to-date in between on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Bluesky and X.

Send your stories to our news@communityrail.org.uk and see our guidance on submitting stories.

Click here to view our member ‘photos of the fortnight’, featuring Heart of England CRP, New Malden Residents’ Association, Friends of Hartlepool Station, Friends of Goostrey Station and Yorkshire Coast CRP.