The Greatest Gathering
was held 1-3 August 2025
So. Many. Trains.
As part of the Railway 200 celebrations, Alstom’s historic Derby Litchurch Lane Works was front and centre, hosting the world's largest-ever gathering of historic and modern trains and rail-related exhibits between Friday 1 and Sunday 3 August 2025.
Thank you for supporting our record-breaking event!
The three day event featured more than 140 iconic vehicles from the past, present and future of the railways, and marked the first time in almost 50 years that the train factory opened to the general public.
Derby Litchurch Lane is one of the world’s largest rolling stock factories, and the only UK facility that designs, engineers, builds and tests trains for domestic and export markets. The factory was opened by the Midland Railway in 1876 and the city of Derby has been building trains continually since 1839. In 2022, Derby was chosen by the Government as the home of Great British Railways following a vote by the public between contender cities.
40k
Visitors across three days
£100,000+
Raised for Railway 200 partner charities
60+
Volunteer & heritage organisations supported
Latest News Updates
First Year Anniversary
The Greatest Gathering Celebrates its first anniversary with a special event in London Paddington, hosted by Great Western Railway on Friday 31 July '26.
The event featured an Avanti West Coast class 390 Pendolino, arriving into Paddington for the very first time. GWR unveiled unit 800 012 in a special livery with all of the locomotive and vehicle numbers that attended the gathering detailed within the logo.
Our thanks go to Network Rail, Great Western Railway, Avanti West Coast, Alstom, GBRF and many others who made this celebration happen.
Visit our Paddington page for more details & images.
More than 60 heritage & volunteer organisations benefit from donation
The Greatest Gathering team have made donations to more than 60 volunteer and heritage organisations who made The Greatest Gathering possible.
We would like to thank these selected organisations for the work their teams put into the event, many of them worked very hard behind the scenes to get exhibits, displays and activities organised in time for the event for visitors to enjoy and we are very grateful for their dedication.
Gallery
A small selection of our record-breaking event in Derby
