Saturday the 21st of October 2023 marks year one of the Rail Tags Story.
First of all, I would like to say thank you. To each and every one of you, thank you for supporting us over the past year. Rail Tags would not of been possible without the backing of you, the community and our partners, all of you are helping us realise our dream of pocket sized preservation.
We want to celebrate what we’ve achieved over the past year as well as talk a bit about the future.
The idea of Rail Tags randomly sprung to my mind during a gym session with my dad one day when discussing the trend of upcycling in the aviation industry. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if someone was doing this for trains? would it even be possible?.
A few months went past and the idea had stayed in the front of my mind. As mentioned in the “About Us” section growing up I witnessed trains I had sentimental value for slowly disappear to time and after discovering the world of memorabilia nothing was more exciting then collecting artefacts from a bygone era, it could range from a simple tube map dated from the early 2000s to a D78 Stock seat, that feeling was a major driver for Rail Tags.
Since that day I thought to myself, if the perfect opportunity presented itself I’ll take it no matter what. Next thing you know I’m on a Class 376 going through East London with a giant FGW MK3 panel with one of my mates helping me carry the thing home. (Cheers Kai!)
Engaging with all of you over the past year has felt very rewarding, hearing your stories about the railway world and how certain units bring you sentimentality. Our favourite interactions have been hearing from a Southern driver who was the first to drive Class 442 424 when it was delivered to Lovers Walk Depot and a preservationist who owns their own MK3 Carriage and Rail Tag in the same livery!
We can’t wait for another year of hearing stories all across the railway family and believe there is incredible stuff coming down the line.
On that note, let’s talk about the future of Rail Tags.
I just want to start off by saying, the future is looking bright. Work on Edition Four is progressing and should hopefully be out by late November but one thing this has taught me is never confirm something is coming too early, just like our railways it takes the smallest delay for the biggest knock on effect.
I can also wholeheartedly promise those Class 86 tags that looked like they were coming next will come soon. They were supposed to be rolled out as Edition Three however the task was seriously underestimated. We had received a generously sized panel and it is a lot thicker then I was expecting. 10mm thick steel has been a challenge to work with but something is telling me it’ll be worth the wait.
There is also a chance that more then just tags will appear on the shop soon. When we get the opportunity to visit a scrapyard we try to take more then just bodyside (who wouldn’t?) which hopefully means you may see some related memorabilia appear on the shop, either bundled with a tag or sold on it’s own. Nothing is a guarantee and we don’t expect this for every Edition we produce.
One other thing we’re looking at producing is posters. During an Instagram poll a whopping majority of you told us you’d like to see railway / rolling stock posters roll out one day. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to approach posters but we’d like to trial the idea one day.
One last thing I want all of you to look out for as we head into year 2 are more blog posts. We want to share our passion for rolling stock and the railways they run on and these blog posts are an excellent way to do that. Growing up the railways have helped me realise nothing is forever so I want each post to help tell a story about a era now lost to time. Believe it or not there was a time when the fastest train was capable of 40mph and when London Underground once had steam trains!
We have some really cool blog posts in the works, some about trains that have a special place here at Rail Tags from a bygone era, some that have a special place that we’re about to loose from the railways very soon and also some extremely cool demonstrations of upcycling train parts with a practical use that will hopefully inspire some of you with your collection.
I hope you’ll be just as engaged with the blog posts as us!
Finishing Remarks
If you’ve made it this far into the blog post I thank you for reading this. As I previously mentioned Rail Tags is only in its early days and I cannot wait to see what we accomplish by this time next year, we run on three things: ambition, passion and 750v DC third rail. I have no doubt in my mind we’ll be back here in a years time looking back and thinking what a year that was, onto the future.
We’re always open to working with the railway family especially in the preservation sector, over the next weeks and months we hope of making a contribution using our tags, we consider it a fundamental part of railway culture.
I think all of us one day want to and deserve to experience a “we did it” moment in our lives. We have one we’d like to share with you now even though the reality of this happening is a billion miles off. There is a big chance there would of been no Rail Tags without the Piccadilly Line 1973 Tube Stock, it was the first train I ever rode on as a child and if I hadn’t… who knows what Rail Tags would even mean? If you can’t tell these veteran workhorses mean an incredible amount to me and nothing would make me happier then to have the 73 Stock as a future Rail Tags release. Or even better, contribute to saving one from scrap when they get replaced by the 2024 Stock. There is currently no plans or intentions by anyone to preserve one.
And that marks the end of the One Year Of Rail Tags! celebratory blog post. I want to thank the team for their commitment to Rail Tags since day one. They stand for what Rail Tags means and I’m lucky to have such good friends working with me to deliver pocket sized preservation to all of you!
Let’s round it off with a bonus teaser for Edition Four!
