200 Years On: Honouring Railway History and Driving the Future
2025 marks 200 years since the world’s first passenger railway journey. Taking route between Stockton and Darlington in 1825, the journey represented a breakthrough that changed the world. Hitachi Rail is proud to be at the heart of Railway 200, a year-long celebration of Britain’s rail legacy, innovation and the communities that power it.
Restoring Where It All Began
As part of this milestone, we’re helping restore Heighington Station built in 1826 and widely recognised as the world’s first railway station. Once a hub for the iconic Locomotion No. 1, the site had fallen into disrepair and was placed on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register in 2024.
Our donation, alongside public crowdfunding and the dedicated efforts of Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, is breathing new life into this historic landmark. Now under the charity’s ownership, the station is unlocking further support from Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, ensuring its future for generations to come.
Connecting Past and Future
Hitachi Rail contributed to the new STEAM to the Future gallery, part of the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s bicentenary exhibition in Darlington. Our dedicated section offers an immersive, hands-on experience that brings the future of rail innovation to life.
Through engaging storytelling and cutting-edge exhibits, visitors can explore how battery-hybrid trains enable zero-emission running on non-electrified routes, understand how digital signalling is improving efficiency and safety across the network, and see how smart maintenance and predictive analytics are transforming the reliability of modern fleets.
A driver’s-eye simulator gives visitors the chance to step into the cab and experience the digital railway in action, while interactive displays help explain the technologies already making a difference on Britain’s railways today.
Inspiring Future Rail Pioneers
To spark the next generation’s imagination, we launched The Invention Challenge an inter‑school competition asking pupils to design a greener railway for the next 200 years. Winning ideas will feature on the Railway 200 Exhibition Train and at Hopetown this autumn. We are also filming a short‑film series in which Hitachi colleagues whose families worked on the original line share their stories of engineering progress and community pride.
Railway 200 is not merely a commemoration; it is a commitment to accelerate innovation, sustainability and skills. From pioneering battery‑hybrid trains that can cut carbon emissions by up to 20 % to cutting‑edge digital signalling that squeezes more capacity from existing track, Hitachi Rail is determined to make Britain’s railways cleaner, smarter and more inclusive for the next two centuries