Chatham Historic Dockyard Railway · Join the team

Be part of
the railway.

Help keep the locomotives, cranes and railway story moving. There are hands-on roles on the railway and ways to support the team behind the scenes.

Explore ways to help

A volunteer railway team Everyone starts somewhere

01Find your place

Curious about
how it works?

You don’t need railway experience to get involved.

Full training is provided, with experienced volunteers helping you learn at a pace that suits you. Whether you enjoy working with machinery, being part of an operating team, or helping organise things behind the scenes, there’s more than one way to contribute.

01 · OPERATIONS

Bring railway days to life

Join the team that prepares and operates the railway and its steam cranes.

Driver
Shunter
Fireman
Crane operator

02 · ENGINEERING

Care for the machinery

Help keep historic railway equipment in safe working order and ready for the future.

Restorations
Repairs
Examinations

03 · ADMINISTRATION

Support the team

Help with the organisation and administration that sit behind the railway’s day-to-day work.

A volunteer standing on the running board of a locomotive — Learning the railway from the footplate up.

A volunteer painting lettering on a railway wagon — Careful engineering work, one detail at a time.

Two volunteers working together around the Dockyard railway — There are plenty of jobs to do together.

02Hear from the team

Why we
get involved.

Meet some of the people behind the railway and hear what volunteering means to them in this episode of the Historic Dockyard’s podcast.

Listen to the podcast

03Take the next step

Ready to
find out more?

The Historic Dockyard Chatham coordinates volunteering across the site. Visit its volunteering page to learn how to get started and make an enquiry.

Visit The Historic Dockyard’s volunteering page

Continue exploringDiscover the railway today