Greatest Gathering


The Greatest Gathering was an exhibition of railway vehicles hosted at Alstom's Derby Litchurch Lane Works during 1–3 August 2025. It was the world's largest-ever gathering of historic and modern rolling stock.
The event marked 200 years in the history of rail transport since the construction of Locomotion No. 1 and hauling of the world's first passenger train along the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825.
Minister of State for Transport, Lord Peter Hendy stated that The Greatest Gathering "promises to enter the history books as the largest exhibition of railway equipment ever staged in the UK."

Event

Previous rolling stock exhibitions had been held every fifty years to celebrate the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway:

Tickets

In January 2025, for each of the three days, an initial 10,000 public tickets were released. Daily tickets for a family cost £65, adults £30, and children £15. After the first day, ticket sales were suspended for a week when the website became overloaded.
Profits were to be split between five charities: Alzheimer's Research UK, the Railway Benefit Fund, Railway Children, Railway Mission and the Transport Benevolent Fund.
Public tickets to the main event were sold out. A free fringe event was held at Derby Guildhall Market for people without tickets, organised by Derby City Council and Derwent Valley Line Community Rail Partnership East Midlands Railway sold souvenir platform tickets for railway photography of arriving and departing convoys at Derby railway station.

Timeline

An opening VIP event was held on 31 July 2025, with Locomotion No. 1 and Greater Anglia's trains as the backdrop. Music performance was by The Grand Central Chorus. Opening speakers included the Member of Parliament for Derby South, Baggy Shanker, the French Ambassador to the UK, Hélène Duchêne, Head Curator of the National Railway Museum Andrew McLean, and Alstom CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge.
A fleet of vintage buses were used to shuttle visitors between Derby city centre, Derby railway station and the entrance to Derby Litchurch Lane Works.
On 1 August 2025, Jeremy Vine broadcast his BBC Radio 2 afternoon programme live from the site, with a live performance from Bill Ryder-Jones.

Locomotive namings

Four locomotives were named during the event:

Exhibits

The original plan had been for 30 to 50 exhibits and 5,000 visitors. During 1–3 August 2025 there were 40,000 visitors, and over 140 railway vehicles and railway locomotives on display covering two centuries.

Steam locomotives

Diesel and electric locomotives

Diesel locomotives

Electric locomotives

Multiple units

Diesel multiple units

Electric multiple units

Multi-mode multiple units

Others

Inspiration, the Railway 200 Exhibition Train - hauled by GB Railfreight Class 66 710 Karen Harrison and 66 719 Michael Portillo locomotives.

Narrow gauge

Special tracks were built for the narrow gauge steam locomotives:
Special tracks were built for the minimum-gauge railway locomotives:Katie ‒ Arthur Heywood's locomotive ‒ Ravenglass and Eskdale RailwayAnne by Exmoor Steam Railway for Longleat Safari and Adventure Park ‒ Perrygrove Railway
Special tracks were built for giving rides behind IMechE Railway Challenge locomotives from the University of Derby and University of Sheffield—supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with passenger carriages from Stapleford Miniature Railway:Spirit of Sandringham ‒ University of SheffieldThe Derby Express ‒ University of Derby & Alstom

Model railway village

Non-rail based exhibits

''Flying Scotsman''

In June 2025, the director of the National Railway Museum, Craig Bentley, confirmed that LNER A3 Flying Scotsman would appear with other rolling stock items in the UK National Collection at the Greatest Gathering—a planned "huge" rail event and "the world's largest gathering of historic and modern railway vehicles." The locomotive would travel to Derby Litchurch Lane Works for the three days in August 2025, where the "iconic" locomotive was planned to "take centre stage." In the middle of the event on Saturday 2 August 2025, Flying Scotsman briefly left Derby Litchurch Lane Works to haul the Belmond British Pullman special charter train between and.

Aftermath

The main organising team were James Dobson, Gus Dunster, Ben Goodwin, Joey Lam, Kathryn Lancaster, Richard Stanton and Simon Turner.
A total of 800 shunting movements were required within Litchurch Lane to move all the rolling stock into their positions.
A 1959 painting DMU at Derby Carriage and Wagon Works by Terence Cuneo resurfaced during preparation of the site for the Greatest Gathering. The painting shows a British Rail Class 108 on the Litchurch Lane traverser; it was subsequently loaned to Derby Museum of Making for display.
In September 2025, the second episode of Michael Portillo's 200 Years of the Railways—partially filmed at The Greatest Gathering in Derby—was broadcast on BBC Two.