The 2025 National Rail Awards were held last night (17.09.25) at the JW Marriott House, London. Northern Railways had two short listed entries and were Highly Commended in both Categories.
CRL’s Catherine Kingdom with the Highly Commended certificate
In the Accessibility Achievement of the Year category, Northern Trains in partnership with Community Rail Lancashire were highly commended for their Try The Train project.
Try The Train, allows participants to incrementally develop confidence and independence over a sustained programme of journey planning and familiarisation workshops and rail excursions. The overall objective is to enable low-confidence participants to learn about the benefits and joy of rail travel and be able to access the social, economic, health opportunities and more that the rail network offers.
In the Small Station of the Year Category, St. Annes-on-the-Sea station was highly commended, which is in recognition of the hard work that the Friends of Stations volunteers led by Tony Ford, Chair of the South Fylde Line Community Rail Partnership, carry out to keep the station looking spick and span.
Tricia Williams, Managing Director, Northern Trains said this in her latest news letter:
Double honours for our teams in National and Community Awards
From beautiful stations to inclusive travel, our teams have received double recognition for their dedication in two different awards announce this week. I was so proud to see our colleagues receive industry recognition at the 2025 National Rail Awards on Wednesday. Our beautiful St. Annes-on-the-Sea station received Highly Commended for Small Station of the Year – all credit to Euan Hilton, Station Manager, and the station team there Kristian Seed, Mary Jarman and the station volunteers – well done to all of you. Our second recognition went to our Try the Train programme in partnership with Community Rail Lancashire receiving Highly Commended for Accessibility Achievement of the Year. Try the Train is designed to build rail confidence through hands-on learning experiences for participants to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to navigate the railway independently, Well done to Maxine Myers, Accessibility Manager and Catherine Kingdom, Community Rail Lancashire for your commitment to this project.
