We’ve been giving trains a second lease of life beyond the scrapyard since 2022.

 

 

 

We’ve worked with:

400 Series Preservation Group Logo
Arlington Fleet Services Logo
railway family prize draw

An Introduction to Rail Tags:

Hello to whoever is reading this! thank you for taking the time to read about us at Rail Tags.

Let me introduce Rail Tags:

My name is Aryan, founder and owner of Rail Tags.

I started Rail Tags in 2022 as a passion project to help promote upcycling within the UK rail industry and to preserve pieces of our rich railway history.

Since we started making tags we’ve received a very positive reception from the industry and have made a lot of good friends along the way, including our partners listed above who we have either helped us realise my dream of Rail Tags or helping to support the preservation sector through collaborative releases such as the 4VOP tags released in February 2025.

Rail Tags is an independently operated business ran by me with the assistance of my friend Sam, who is our graphics designer for our tags and lending a helping hand when I need it most during an Editions production cycle.

A Little Bit About Me: 

I was born and raised in London where I discovered my passion for the railways from a young age.

I’ve been used to the sights and sounds of trains and an avid enthusiast before I learnt to how to walk. The first train I remember going on as a kid was the Piccadilly Line 1973 Stock.

Long ago me and my grandfather would jump on a train from our local station at the time to go to Heathrow Airport to watch planes take off and land. There was something so captivating about trains and the railway environment to my young mind. Maybe it was the colourful and sleek design of the 1973 Stock mixed with a stunning LU corporate livery or hearing the thunderous sounds of shoe clatter and them roaring into a platform bringing life to a quiet station.

When I was a teen I remember seeing trains I’ve grown up around with like the C69/77 & D78 Stock go into retirement and replaced by the S Stock. It was sad realising they were to disappear forever from the Underground network. Most scrapped and turned into things like cans and razor blades, completely devoid of the hard working life they once had and mostly forgotten about, only living on in memory.

As a rail enthusiast myself I understand much of the emotion behind seeing great workhorses come to the end of their working lives, especially the ones you have found great memories with realising you’ll wake up and jump on the same line realising it wasn’t what it once was. Times always change and we’ll see the cycle of the new replacing the old continue for as long as our railways exist, which is something that intrigued me in my later teen hood.

Despite the times I have always found a sense of excitement when it comes to the chance of collecting parts from these vehicles, saving whatever I could to cherish the memories of what once ran on such familiar rails. I still tread over, I would scour eBay and anywhere else trying to find parts from the C & D Stock trains which were the first trains of my childhood to go.

Rail Tags came about as an idea in my mind a few years ago. As an aviation enthusiast too I found it awesome to be able to commemorative tags made from aircraft skin that flew over my head as a child living close to Heathrow such as the British Airways Airbus A319s and Boeing 747-400s, not forgetting other aircraft I like such as the F14 Tomcat Figher Aircraft.

I remember thinking to myself why it hadn’t be tried with trains and how much I would love to see this done, it would have been perfect to see. There came a point where I said to myself if the opportunity arose I would give it a go…. which happened not too long after this thought in 2021. All of this came to fruition thanks to seeing a FGW MK3 panel for sale one day and realising that the stars had aligned. Since then has been a remarkable journey bringing me new insight into our industry and learning in depth about different types of rolling stock when producing an edition as well as engaging wherever possible with like minded people passionate about trains, especially the preservation sector who’s main goal is to share our memories and achievements with future generations

Hopefully one day we’ll be able to contribute towards saving and preserving a train ourselves? If you asked me what I would do anything to save, it would be the 1973 Stock which has been a staple of carrying people to and from Heathrow since the eighties, revolutionising rail travel to one of the biggest airports in the world, and not forgetting my personal connection to the 73 Stock mentioned above. 

Class 442 unit 412 sat at Eastleigh Works in storage.
That is me, standing in the gangway door of Class 442 412 in Arlington Eastleigh Works on a photoshoot trip for Edition Two.
(uploaded with permission from Arlington Fleet Services)

SamT Logo

Meet Sam, my good friend and Rail Tags’ Graphics Designer:

Hi, my name is Sam. I joined the Rail Tags journey as a graphic designer when it first began as a casual side project with my friend Aryan, however this quickly developed into a broader derivative of my general interest in the Railways. This has involved me in several carefully considered sets of line art, as well as photography in numerous scrap yards.

Growing up, I used to love the sounds of the Class 465/9 and was fascinated by how people in the industry have this technology down to a science. I’ve always been strongly captivated by the mechanical intricacies of the railways, and this is a passion that I uphold to this day. In my spare time, I am often tinkering around with little DIY projects, namely the larger-scale shift of Rail Tags production to become more of an in-house job. I take great pride in what I create, and hope to inspire any other hobbyists who takes interest in creating something that works, something that you can call your own.

I work as a sound designer primarily, but also as a technical artist. My main skill sees the sound preservation of trains, and subsequently, high quality recreations for other enthusiasts to listen to and enjoy.

I am the graphics designer behind the tags; those lines you see carefully etched into those little metal plates with all those intricate details? That’s the process of a true enthusiast bringing passion to hand-held pieces of history.

Aryan has been a good friend of mine for a long time now, and I can confidently say that we both make a wicked team together. Rail Tags would not be what it is without our teamwork and his forward attitude to preserving significant pieces of our railway history.

You can find examples of Sam’s exceptional sound engineering where he makes sound mods here: SamTSM 

Our Purpose Runs On Rails:

Once a train has lived out their intended design purpose of transporting millions of people or tons of freight over millions of miles of track they are replaced by a newer generation of rolling stock which will fulfil the same purpose.

Once retired, the veterans end up becoming unneeded and demoted of their purpose that gave them their identity.

Most if not all are sent to the sidings in the sky. Some trains will pave way to keep other members of their family alive by donating their useful components while luckier vehicles are cleaned up, restored and preserved for future generations to admire, static or in operational condition.

Our purpose is to be here for the majority of a fleet that are doomed to be scrapped. The trains that join our fleet is given a second lease of life through the growing trend of upcycling.

On the scrap line, trains are stripped completely with some parts being sold onto enthusiasts to cherish. After being scrapped their final trip leaves these trains as a pile of unrecognisable metals and wires.

What gives us our DNA and character is the opportunity to upcycle as much of the metals as we can into a commemorative tag that displays the history that these once great machines had. Serving them back in return to be remembered for the legacy they carried.

No matter how popular or unpopular a train may be from the iconic HST that revolutionised our mainline services ushering in a new era of rail travel, to the much despised Pacer DMUs that saved our branch lines, seeing such important vehicles of every day life rest their wheels after a decorated career will always invoke emotion among people.

Here at Rail Tags there is space for any train in our fleet no matter what, this is our way of preservation.

Whether you are someone who wants to own a piece of your favourite train, someone with fond memories that a train may carry, or someone who has worked with a unit in the past there is a Rail Tag in our fleet for anyone and everyone.

We are Rail Tags.

Photo on right: London Underground A60 Tube Stock awaiting it’s fate before heading to the siding in the sky (CC BY-SA 2.0 – Bengley1)

 

London Underground A60 Tube Stock at Booths Rotherham waiting to be scrapped.