We're keen to make the railway accessible to all, especially helping individuals overcome the barrier of limited confidence.
We’ve set up a team of over 35 Community Ambassadors to help support you if want to give the train a try. They’re our colleagues, who volunteer to go beyond their normal roles with us and organise Try the Train days with groups across our network.
How do Try the Train events work
These trips provide an opportunity to meet a couple of our Community Ambassadors at your local station. You’ll learn more about the help available, including details on buying tickets, where to find information and how to keep safe. We then board a service together for a short accompanied trip. Along the way we’ll tell you more about the support we can offer on the train, before leaving to experience another station and its facilities. We’ll then help you back to your starting station.
These trips are ideal for:
- children,
- the elderly,
- those with disabilities and/or accessibility needs,
- job or education seekers.
We also welcome requests from any inexperienced group or individual who is nervous about the barriers to railway travel.
Interested?
We ask anyone interested in a Try the Train experience to get in touch with Paula, our dedicated Community Rail Manager.
Things to Remember
- All of our Try the Train events are tailored to your needs. So we’ll be in touch every step of the way to talk you through the process and make sure that we’re able to provide the best possible experience. Events are run on our off-peak services to give you a quieter and more comfortable journey.
- Although our staff are DBS-checked, we can’t act as carers or guardians for the purposes of safeguarding. If you are bringing vulnerable adults or children, you are responsible for meeting the safeguarding requirements specified in your risk assessments.
- We recommend having smaller groups to get the most value out of a Try the Train event. We are more than happy to discuss running multiple Try the Train events so that large groups can still experience this offer with us.
- If trains are disrupted we might have to change plans or cancel the event at short notice. We’ll always do our best to give you as much notice as we can.
