Rail Live 2025 returns to Warwickshire
"The largest outdoor rail exhibition in the UK, attracting 7,000 rail professionals a year, representing all aspects of the rail industry and rail technologies."
The year 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the modern railway. Britain and the world changed forever when the Stockton & Darlington Railway opened on September 27, 1825, connecting places, people, communities and ideas and ultimately transforming the world. Railway 200 is a year-long nationwide campaign to celebrate 200 years of the modern railway and inspire a new generation of young pioneering talent to choose a career in rail. It invites community, rail and other groups to get involved.
So now is a good time to remind readers that next month Stratford and Warwickshire welcome Rail Live, the major rail trade show returning for its annual stop at the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre, from 18th-19th June. It is the largest outdoor rail exhibition in the UK, attracting 7,000 rail professionals a year, representing all aspects of the rail industry and rail technologies.
Coventry & Warwickshire is a leading UK centre for the design, development, commercialisation, manufacture and sales of all kinds of vehicles, from car to SUVs, from motorcycles to commercial vehicles, from defence vehicles to off-highway and motorsport, from aerospace to vertical take-off vehicles and autonomous pods. It is also a centre for the design and development of rail technologies.
The revolutionary very light rail technologies with light-weight battery powered vehicles and low impact light rail track infrastructure, were conceived and developed in Stratford by Transport Design International, working in recent years with WMG at the University of Warwick. The Coventry VLR has been on test at the Very Light Rail Centre in Dudley, but returns next month to the streets of Coventry as a live demonstrator of the technology.
The first hydrogen powered train was developed and tested in Warwickshire at the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre, a joint project between Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham BCRRE. Together with these innovations and a rail supply chain here that includes venerable names like Oleo International in Exhall, and newer names like Flexicon in Coleshill, Coventry & Warwickshire continues to play an important part in the Rail 200 story past, present and future. The area is also home to two rail freight hubs at Dordon and Hams Hall, and new parkway stations are planned at Rugby and Nuneaton. The county is also carrying much of the Midlands HS2 construction south of Birmingham.
Porterbrook is a technology and rolling stock leasing company, which owns about a quarter of the UK’s rolling stock, leasing out train carriages to train operating companies like Chiltern and Cross Country. Porterbrook is based in Derby but since 2021 has run the 135 acre, rail-linked Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre near Stratford-upon-Avon, where it has invested up to £75m in purchasing the site in 2024, and upgrading facilities, including electrification of the 3.5km test loop.
The Long Marston site, formerly known as the Quinton Rail Technology Centre, has been the home of Rail Live since it moved from Network Rail’s Westwood Training Centre over 10 years ago. It is just one of a number of trade shows and conferences held every year in the city and county, and benefiting the wider visitor economy, which attracts some 20m visitors to the city and county every year, and is a major employer and driver of the local economy in itself.
In total more than 300 exhibitors will be at Rail Live, while a wide range of speakers will also be in attendance, representing various sectors of the industry. Speakers include the Rail Minister, Lordy Hendy, and Network Rail Chief Executive, Sir Andrew Haines.
The Rail Minister will be discussing the role of government in supporting the railway as it takes train operating companies in-house and sets up Great British Railways. Meanwhile Haines, who announced in March he was retiring from his position at Network Rail in October, will be discussing rail reform which will include the roadmap for change in the industry.
Network Rail is preparing two villages for this year’s Rail Live. The UK’s infrastructure owner will have On- and Off-track villages at the two-day. Sustainability is a key feature of this year’s Rail Live, and Network Rail will also have a dedicated exhibit in the Sustainability Zone.
For more information on Rail Live, visit https://raillive.org.uk/
For more information on Rail 200, visit https://railway200.co.uk/