January 2026 update

Hello Journey members! We hope you all had a wonderful festive period, although it feels like a long time ago now...

2026 is in full swing, so here's the first monthly update from us with some upcoming events as we look ahead to LGBTQ+ History Month next month. As ever, if your networks have arranged any webinars or socials that you are happy to extend to a wider audience, please do let us know and we can promote on the Journey events pages. Equally, please share our upcoming events with your networks and any other interested parties - as ever, the more the merrier!

Firstly, a look back: last Thursday 22nd January we supported a fantastic Rail Wellbeing Live event: Journey to Better LGBTQ+ Wellbeing where panellists Jarell Bempong, Karen Wightman, Rony Roy and Trudi Pearce discussed LGBTQ+ wellbeing in a transport context, focusing in particular on our mental wellbeing in these troubling times for our community. Odis Palmer from Rail Unites for Inclusion hosted the session and Joe Brown from Journey moderated the Q&A. You can watch the recording back here (you need to register with Rail Wellbeing Live to view).

On Thursday 5th February 16:00-17:00, Hitachi Rail's Pride ERG invite you to join a webinar entitled: Have some respect : LGBTQ+ pioneers who changed the face of music. This follows their fantastic session last year focusing on the history of LGBTQ+ representation in TV and film, this promises to be a great event. To access the Teams link, RSVP to the event on our events pages.

On Tuesday 10th February 13:00-14:00 we have our February meeting. We are marking LGBTQ+ History Month 2026's theme of science & innovation with a webinar showcasing the LGBTQ+ community's contributions to science & innovation in transport, past and present.

We will hear the story of Charles Beyer - a celebrated locomotive engineer from the Victorian era whose letters to fellow engineer Gustav Stieler discovered in 2010 are believed to have revealed their love for one another. Among many engineering innovations pioneered by Charles Beyer through the Beyer-Peacock company in Manchester were steam locos which condensed their own emissions for use on the early Metropolitan and District Railways, forerunners of the London Underground. We will then hear about the present: LGBTQ+ people working in transport engineering for companies such as Alstom, Hitachi Rail and Siemens will give a fascinating insight into the work that they do at the cutting edge of science & technology in transport today. To access the Teams link, RSVP to the event on our events pages.

Beyer-Peacock condensing loco in the London Transport Museum

On Thursday 12th February 17:15-20:30 is our Pride on the Line history month trivia quiz kindly hosted by KPMG's Breathe network at their Canary Wharf offices. All in aid of Terrence Higgins Trust, this promises to be an evening of fun and healthy inter-network competition where the Tube driving drag queen Felicia will host a transport-and-LGBTQ+ themed quiz with refreshments. Please sign up via the Eventbrite link: whether you're coming solo (we will match you with team-mates on the night), or coming as a team with colleagues, please do ensure that everyone has signed up individually, so that your building passes can be prepared. There'll be a range of prizes up for grabs both through the quiz and a raffle.

Jumping ahead to the March meeting on Tuesday 10th March 13:00-14:00, as a 'heads up' we intend to hold a workshop / listening session to discuss the initial outputs from the Journey LGBTQ+ Transport worker survey. This was launched for History Month last year and we would now like to move onto drafting the report, so your insights and feedback would be greatly appreciated at that session (invite to follow nearer to the time). We have almost 200 responses which is great, but we really want more to make the findings as statistically robust as possible. Please share the survey with your networks one last time.

At the end of March we're delighted to confirm details of a fabulous LGBTQ+ guided tour of the National Railway Museum in York. The tour on the afternoon of Friday 27th March 12:30-17:30 will take in the incredible exhibits through an LGBTQ+ lens, brought to life by recordings from the People, Pride and Progress oral history project curated by the wonderful Ashlynn Hudson-Welburn and team from the NRM. We will then arrange our first York social to follow, with dinner at 18:00 followed by drinks (venues TBC), so even if you can't make the tour it would be lovely to see you afterwards. The tour is limited to 20 attendees so please sign up quick using the Eventbrite link. For the social, keep an eye on the event on the website for venue details - please RSVP if you are joining for dinner so we can gauge numbers.

Finally, we'd like to share an upcoming Manchester social from our sibling network Aviation Pride UK on Thursday 5th February, more details / tickets available here.