Not-for-profit professional network The Railway Club (TRC) has announced the launch of its Corporate Membership programme at Rail Live 2026.

The announcement, made at Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre, comes on the back of the organisation’s most successful event to date, the Big Railway Bash 2026, and caps the most significant week in TRC’s 14-month journey. Alongside Corporate Membership, TRC is announcing its expansion across the island of Ireland through a merger with The Railway Junction to form The Railway Club Ireland.

Founded in 2024 by Alex Pedley and Byron Summers, TRC has grown to more than 250 paid individual members, delivered 36 events, and seen over 1,800 tickets claimed or sold across the UK, supported by a combined network of 26 ambassadors and board members, all without advertising spend and entirely through community word of mouth. All income is reinvested into the events programme and community activity.

TRC revealed that its Corporate Membership programme was available at three tiers, each aligned to UK Government definitions of business size under the Companies Act. It said this would enable independently verifiable social value reporting for bid submissions and ESG frameworks.

TRC added that all three tiers includes reduced and guaranteed ticket pricing at its flagship events, post-event summaries with full attendee data, quarterly Industry Pulse Reports, roundtable invitations, speaking and webinar opportunities, an annual member dinner invitation, and an annual social value statement. The first 10 organisations to join at any tier will be recognised as TRC Charter Members, receiving permanent Founding Member status.

Alex Pedley, Co-Founder, TRC, said: “When we started talking about corporate membership, the conversation kept coming back to the same question: how do we do this without changing what TRC actually is? Because the thing that makes this community work is that it is led by individuals. Real people, real conversations, no corporate agenda in the room.

“That ethos is not something we were willing to compromise on, and I do not think we have. Every corporate member gets named individual memberships. Their people join the community as themselves. The organisation pays, but it is always a person who shows up, connects, and benefits. Retaining that individual-led culture is not just something we care about, it is the whole point.”

TRC held its first social networking event in Doncaster in March 2025, welcoming around 30 rail industry professionals. In the 14 months since, the organisation has grown to a national programme spanning more than 12 UK cities, supported by a combined network of 26 ambassadors and board members representing regions from Yorkshire to the Midlands and beyond.

Byron Summers, Co-Founder of TRC, said: “The growth of The Railway Club over these past 14 months has been an incredible journey, one that none of us fully predicted when we started. What we built is something genuine. The industry needed a space where people could come together without an agenda, without hierarchy, and without the formality that so often gets in the way of real connection. That space now has over 250 members and keeps growing because people believe in it. Launching Corporate Membership feels like the right next step at the right moment.”

The organisation said its growth had been driven in “significant part” by its combined network of 26 ambassadors and board members, who have championed TRC across their professional networks, supported the events programme, and acted as the human face of the community in their regions. It added that ambassadors including Mark Hardeman (Yorkshire) and Wes Crompton (Midlands) have been central to building TRC’s regional presence from the ground up.

Mark Hardeman, Board Member, TRC, commented: “I have been incredibly proud to be part of this community from the very beginning. Our first event was in Doncaster in March 2025, and I remember standing in the room with around 30 people thinking this was the start of something. To then stand at the Big Railway Bash 2026 at Rail Live with over 300 industry professionals around us, in just 14 months, that is not something any of us take for granted. It is a testament to every single person who has shown up, brought a colleague along, and believed in what we were building. As a board member I have seen first-hand the dedication and passion that has gone into making TRC what it is today, and I am incredibly excited about what comes next.”

TRC said that Rail Live 2026 at Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre had provided the backdrop for its most ambitious activation to date.

Alongside the Bash, it operated The Railway Club Village at Long Marston, providing exhibition space for 26 SME businesses from across the rail supply chain. The Village gave those businesses direct access to Rail Live’s audience of industry professionals, many of whom would not have had the platform or the resources to secure a standalone exhibition presence at an event of this scale. TRC called the initiative a “live example” of the supply chain activation strategy at the heart of its Corporate Membership programme: making specialist capability visible, accessible, and commercially active.

Alongside the Corporate Membership launch, TRC has also announced its expansion across the island of Ireland. The Railway Club Ireland is formed through a merger with The Railway Junction, an existing professional community for rail industry professionals in Ireland, bringing together both organisations’ communities under a shared ethos and a shared name.

The expansion covers both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, making TRC a genuinely cross-border community for the first time. The Railway Club Ireland will operate under the same not-for-profit principles as TRC UK, with its own Ambassador network and events programme serving rail professionals across the island. TRC said this merger reflected its ambition to be “the professional home for everyone who works in and around the rail industry, regardless of where they are based.”

It added that the launch of TRC Ireland represented a significant step in the organisation’s longer-term ambition to build a community that reflects the rail industry as it “actually operates, across borders, across supply chain tiers, and across career stages.”