Located in the heart of County Durham in North East England, Tanfield Railway is a nationally significant heritage attraction and proudly recognised as the world’s oldest railway, with origins dating back to 1725. Originally built to transport coal from the collieries of Tanfield to the River Tyne, the line played a vital role in the development of industrial Britain. Today, the railway preserves this remarkable legacy through authentic, hands-on experiences, steam-powered journeys, and a dedicated volunteer team committed to restoration and education.

The railway operates a six-mile round trip through some of North East England’s most picturesque countryside, giving visitors the chance to ride in lovingly restored Victorian carriages pulled by historic steam locomotives. The experience is immersive and atmospheric, taking guests back in time while telling the story of early engineering triumphs and industrial progress.

In 2025, as part of its 300th anniversary celebrations and following multiple Heritage Railway Association Award wins, Tanfield Railway took a bold step into the digital age by partnering with n-gage.io. The goal: to deliver a digital platform that would enrich visitor engagement, improve interpretation, support operational planning, and generate new opportunities for storytelling and support.

The new Tanfield Railway mobile app, powered by n-gage.io’s flexible SaaS solution, has become a vital extension of the railway’s on-site and off-site experience. By pairing rich, educational content with real-time communication tools, automated trails and powerful behavioural data, the railway has laid the digital foundations for its next century—ensuring its past can continue to inspire future generations.

As Tanfield Railway approached its tricentenary, the management team recognised the need to modernise its approach to visitor engagement, without compromising its deeply authentic heritage appeal. The railway needed a solution that could:

• Provide interactive navigation and wayfinding across the six-mile route and multiple station sites
  
  
• Offer rich, educational content that brings the railway’s unique history and engineering legacy to life
  
  
• Improve communication around timetables, events and service changes in real-time
  
  
• Deliver in-app trails to support guided journeys and walking tours along and beyond the track
  
  
• Offer sponsors and partners greater visibility and engagement with visitors
  
  
• Use guest behaviour insights to support fundraising, campaign planning, and marketing
  
  
• Promote its award-winning restoration and conservation work through a digital medium
  
  
• The team also needed a solution that could scale with the railway’s seasonal activity and support growing digital expectations from today’s visitors and heritage supporters.
  

Tanfield Railway implemented n-gage.io’s powerful SaaS attraction platform, combining a highly customisable mobile guest app with a real-time operator dashboard for content management, messaging, analytics and more. This allowed Tanfield to design an experience that stayed true to its heritage while making it easier and more enjoyable for visitors to explore and connect with the railway.

Key features included:

Interactive GPS Mapping and Navigation
Visitors can explore the route, stations, signal boxes, engine sheds and scenic viewpoints with ease using a live, GPS-enabled site map.

Automated Mobile Trails
The app’s heritage trails feature supports both on-train and on-foot journeys with rich historical content, audio commentary and location-based storytelling.

Push Notifications for Timetables, Events 
and Special Offers
Real-time updates on train schedules, special events, volunteer days and ticket offers keep passengers informed and engaged.

Locomotive and Carriage Profiles
Visitors can access detailed information and behind-the-scenes videos on the lovingly restored locomotives and carriages in the Tanfield collection.

In-App Push Notifications
Real-time alerts for upcoming performances, special offers, and sponsor activations ensured fans never missed a moment.

Supporter and Sponsor Updates
The app acts as a platform for sharing updates on restoration work, fundraising campaigns and sponsor recognition, keeping supporters connected year-round.

"We're delighted to launch our new Tanfield Railway App and offer our visitors and passengers an enhanced digital experience," said David Watchman, General Manager at Tanfield Railway. n-gage.io has developed a software platform and mobile app that’s helping the attraction industry to transform their approach to visitor engagement, whilst delivering business critical insights to help improve operations and drive revenue growth, something which is so vital to us in the industry.”

“The technology will certainly help us to enhance the heritage railway experience and deliver another form of digital media around the restoration and conservation work of the organisation. We believe the software and app to be a game changer for the heritage railway industry when it comes to raising awareness of our work and delivering a more personalised experience.”