Primary Engineer

Key Points

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Our partnership with the National Railway Museum is driven by a collective desire to make sure that this industry’s most exciting days are ahead of us, not behind.

From turtles and sheep to cars and castles, Porterbrook engineers were thoroughly impressed with the unique model trains presented by primary school students at the Primary Engineer celebration event in 2025. Porterbrook has now been sponsoring the Warwickshire Rail Programme for four years, with over 2000 children participating from neighbouring schools around the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre.

The year-long programme, funded by Porterbrook and delivered by the not-for-profit Primary Engineer, pairs up Porterbrook engineers with primary school pupils to bring engineering to life in the classroom. It allows children to achieve their full potential through engagement with engineering, and helps to encourage more young people to consider careers in the railway.

Ben Ackroyd

Porterbrook COO

We talk about getting young children involved in STEM subjects and this is exactly what they’ve been doing. Learning how to build the model but also the problem-solving skills which they learn along the way are really important. Those are core skills to engineering

Andrew Norris

Head of Partnerships at Primary Engineer

It’s really fantastic the way the engineers throw themselves into working with the children. Every school receives the training and that’s the real key so that the teachers actually have the knowledge to be able to run the programme.

Lindy Gascoigne

Teacher at St Mary’s CofE Primary School

To break out of the classroom and do something hands on and practical has been really special for some of our children.

Key Points

Our partnership with the National Railway Museum is driven by a collective desire to make sure that this industry’s most exciting days are ahead of us, not behind.

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