The Dram Tram: Keith and Dufftown Railway Wins Innovation Award

The Heritage Railway Association Annual Awards 2024 on Saturday 10th February brought together a host of preservation and restoration projects from opposite ends of the heritage rail spectrum. Sponsored by Inspire Structures, the long-running awards featuring 11 categories designed to capture the most innovative, eye-catching and exciting projects and achievements from right across the sector in the UK. The winners were announced during a glamorous dinner in Brighton celebrating all that is great in heritage rail and honours the outstanding achievements of all its members

The Award for Innovation in Business and Customer Experience: was won by the Keith and Dufftown Railway for the conversion of a redundant diesel multiple unit trailer car into a whisky bar known as the ‘Dram Tram’. The conversion has opened up a range of new business opportunities for the Banffshire-based line.

The other awards were for

Railway of the Year
Steam Locomotive Engineering,
Rolling Stock Preservation
Diesel and Electric Locomotion
Innovation in Business and Customer Experience,
Marketing and Communications,
Infrastructure
Environmental Innovation
Rising Star
Team of the Year
Young Volunteer of the Year
Chairman’s Special Award (a special award, not handed out every year)

The Heritage Railway Association www.hra.uk.com
The Heritage Railway Association is a trade association representing, protecting and promoting the interests of heritage and tourist railways, related museums, tramways, cliff lifts, railway preservation groups and related organisations. More than 180 HRA member organisations regularly open to the public, 156 of them operating with passengers. The organisation has some 300 corporate members. The HRA assists and guides its members, who may be any organisation that is heritage rail related, and is preserving, or helping their visitors understand, or just enjoy, the UK’s rich rail-based history.

The UK’s Heritage Railways
There are more than 150 operational heritage railways in the UK, running trains over almost 600 miles of track, with almost 500 stations. They provide 4,000 full-time equivalent jobs, supported by 22,000 volunteers. They welcome more than 13 million visitors every year and contribute an estimated £600 million to the national economy.