Didcot Railway Centre and the Vintage Trains Charitable Trust have announced that they are to work together to develop and promote the market for heritage trains in Britain.

The collaboration will focus on:

1. expanding the market for Railway Heritage experiences at both Didcot Railway Centre and Tyseley Depot, Using the experience of DRC in tourism and visitor entertainment and Vintage Trains’ knowledge of running heritage trains on the mainline;

2. expanding the market for main line tours utilising both organisations’ databases; building market penetration in the Midlands and Home Counties, together with promoting Vintage Trains charter trains and adding boarding locations in the Oxford, Didcot, Swindon and London areas;

3. Tyseley Locomotive Works assisting Didcot Railway Centre in engineering on their extensive engine restoration program by becoming a preferred supplier;

4. Didcot Railway Centre assisting the Vintage Trains Charitable Trust in improving its museum and archive development.

Didcot Railway Centre is a living history museum of the Great Western Railway set in 21 acres alongside Didcot Parkway Station. From Brunel’s Broad Gauge to the modern trains running past, Didcot Railway Centre’s unique collection of buildings, locomotives, carriages, wagons and other artefacts shows how the Great Western Railway developed to be the premier railway company of the 1940s.

The founders of Vintage Trains Charitable Trust were world pioneers in establishing heritage railways and its main line operations. Based at Tyseley Locomotive Works in Birmingham UK, the charity boasts that it “has established a thriving heritage engineering workshop delivering first-class services nationwide, whilst preserving the skills of the steam age and training young people in manufacturing”. Vintage Trains established a Community Benefit Society to establish and develop its own train operating company in 2017, licensed to run express steam trains nationwide, offering an existing range of tours including:

• the Shakespeare Express in Shakespeare’s County between Birmingham and Stratford
• the Polar Express Train Ride from Birmingham at Christmas
• Diesel Explorers to popular tourist destinations and seaside towns
• Express Steam Trains running at up to 75 mph on the main line railway
• private Special trains offering tailor made tours.