Over the last year or so, we’ve been working more closely with heritage railway organisations. Some of that has been through and with the Heritage Railway Association. Some of it has been direct with individual organisations – particularly the Severn Valley Railway and Didcot Railway Centre.
For some time we’ve also been working with the Mid-Hants Railway – perhaps better known as the Watercress Line. It feels particularly apt as it was Railway Work, Life & Death project co-lead Mike Esbester’s local heritage railway whilst growing up. It’s also in the same county as project partner organisation the University of Portsmouth, so is close to home. Collaborating with the Watercress Line’s Learning & Outreach Coordinator, Dan Ball, and Archivist, Keith Brown, we’ve been working on a number of things starting with the project, but thinking more broadly too.
Staff stories – Lives along the Line
We’ve said for a long time that one of the key things the Railway Work, Life & Death project can do is offer a way into personalising the past. This is through the way the project gives us a glimpse at the individuals who kept the railways running in the past. With the Watercress Line we’re developing a series of life stories, looking at staff on the railway in the pre-preservation era.
Our starting point was the people who appear in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database of accidents to railway workers before 1939. Given the route of the Watercress Line – through rural Hampshire – and relatively light traffic, there aren’t all that many people who feature: just three. However, they were to form the nucleus of the ‘Lives along the Line’ display work.
Working closely with Keith Brown, we’ve identified a number of other staff for whom records existed and who might give a flavour of people, work and life along the Watercress Line route. We’ve been researching and producing life stories for these people. So far we’ve contributed the lives of those found in the project database: Arthur Gates, Thomas Hall and Matthew Birkett. We’re working on some related, contextual information too. These life stories exist as a short-form poster, with a QR code to direct people to the fuller story, available as a PDF. The people we’re featuring in the future will cover the earliest days of the route to the end of its days in BR.
For the project this has been a really beneficial and interesting collaboration, bringing us and our work to a heritage location and audience. Archivist Keith Brown has long been researching staff on the line – and by working together, we’ve found an appropriate outlet for that research. It’s really lovely this makes use of the Watercress Line’s own archive, which is a wealth of information. Significantly, it also puts the archive in front of visitors to the Watercress Line and helps engage them with the Line’s social history – something easily overlooked.
In print and on screen
We’ve also worked with the Watercress Line on two other things. Firstly, it’s been brilliant to bring the ‘South Coast’s forgotten railway workers’ exhibition from the ‘Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts’ project to Ropley, in the viewing gallery and education space. We’ve helped extend the reach of the Line, both in terms of area covered but also by thinking more about the people who worked on the railways in our area.
Secondly, early in 2026 we worked with the Watercress Line and a group of media production students from Southampton Solent University, as they put together a short film about the Watercress Line and the Railway Work, Life & Death project. That’s just gone live on the Watercress Line’s YouTube channel and is available here.
The value of collaboration to the Watercress Line
But what value has our collaboration had for the Watercress Line? And why might other heritage railway organisations consider a collaboration like this, drawing on and working with the Railway Work, Life & Death project?
The types of stories we’re telling – focusing on accidents and their impacts on people – aren’t easy ones to share in a heritage setting. Nonetheless, it’s important to try. They help give an impression of what work was like, warts and all. This type of work is beneficial, in different ways. Dan Ball has noted that our collaboration
has substantially increased the prominence of social history within our interpretation. By focusing on the workforce and the lived experiences of those connected with the railway […] we have been able to engage a much broader range of audiences — including schools, families, older visitors, and non-specialists. Presenting relatable, human stories has made railway history more accessible and meaningful […] we have experienced a noticeable uplift in engagement with social history content, above and beyond what we have previously encountered. There has been increased interest in archival material, positive feedback from visitors and community groups, and strong enthusiasm from volunteers and staff for this new interpretive direction
This is a really excellent set of observations and is exactly the sort of thing we hoped might happen. Our thanks to Dan and Keith, along with others at the Watercress Line – in particular Meg and Jules behind the scenes and Rebecca Dalley – for their generous support of this collaboration. We’re keen to keep working with heritage railway organisations and to share the value of looking at past railway staff.