All aboard the TrainTok trend: spotters and staff boost rail content online

Number of videos about British trains doubles in three months as creators find audiences interested in workings of railways

They are not just gathered at the end of your local train station platform any more. Now they are on your social media platforms too.

Trainspotters have played a part in more than doubling the number of videos about British trains on TikTok in the last three months. According to the platform, the rise in rail content is also down to more people seeking information on cheap tickets, facts about the London Underground and tales from train staff.

Posts tagged with #UKTrains have increased by 247% over recent months. The trend has even led to train staff moonlighting as content creators. Shamal Cain, who goes by the handle Tube Bellingham, is a Transport for London employee who shares advice for commuters across the capital.

According to Cain, scrollers are keen to learn more about topics they know little about but that affect their daily lives. “I realised how many people use London transport but don’t actually know a lot of information about it,” he said.

Cain said many commuters were not fully aware of the TfL journey planner or how to avoid penalty fares from not tapping in and out. After noticing the gap, he thought: “Why don’t I just record giving information on what I do?”

He said: “A majority of people commute through TfL. I think because a lot of people are doing that on a daily basis, they’re very engaged with information.”

When Cain joined TikTok, direct messages came in fast, with followers asking him about alternative routes when services were down or for advice on getting a job with TfL.

The popularity of train content has also risen thanks to enthusiast rail influencers such as Nathan Pinnock-James, who makes educational transport videos.

“Since I started posting on TikTok, there’s been a lot of people that have the context of what a train is, how to use a train, but may not have noticed certain aspects of it,” said Pinnock-James, AKA Network Nathan. “They’re like: ‘Oh, wow! That’s quite shocking!’”

He said obscure hobbies thrived on the app. “TikTok has really opened the door to really niche, specific topics coming on to your ‘for you’ page. It’s allowed people to find things that they didn’t know were interesting to them.”

The 24-year-old said he found an audience online by creating videos about the best trainspotting locations, station openings, and explainers on how the shape of train wheels make DLR carriages wobble.

Yazmin How, the head of emerging communities at TikTok UK, said: “It’s inspiring to see such a wide variety of creators, whether it’s professional train drivers, tube historians, young enthusiasts or comedy creators, using short-form video to make transport content entertaining and accessible to everyone.

“The growth we’re seeing in #traintok reflects a real appetite among our UK community for authentic, educational storytelling that connects people, turning everyday travel into a shared community interest.”

Short video content about trains, sometimes called TrainTok, has been a growing part of the social media app for years. The media personality Francis Bourgeois found popularity on TikTok in 2021 after his videos of him reacting to British locomotives went viral.

While human creators are jumping onboard, AI-generated videos – including clips that show high-speed trains and passengers falling out of tube carriages – are also contributing to the growth. In late 2025, TikTok revealed that more than 1bn videos that included AI were hosted on its application.

The company said its content operations team “works closely with creators and publishers to support the flow of high-quality content in the TikTok ecosystem”.

TikTok, which announced the increase in train content during an annual trend report at its UK headquarters, said there was a growing interest in niche topics across its platform.

It said searches about history in the UK had gone up by 50% in the last six months, and posts about the National Trust had doubled during the same period.

How said: “The rise of train content on TikTok shows that even a niche passion can build highly engaged communities.”