Gifts for train drivers and railway workers

The best gifts for train drivers, guards, signallers and everyone else who keeps the railway running are the ones that make shift life a little kinder. Early turns that start before the first bus, late turns that finish after the last one, nights, rest days that move around the calendar. A good flask or a sunrise alarm clock will get more use than anything with a steam engine printed on it. That said, plenty of railway people are proper enthusiasts, and for them a live departure board for their own station hits the spot.

What do railway workers actually need?

Mostly sleep, food at strange hours and a way to switch off. Uniform and safety kit (hi-vis, boots and the rest) is normally issued by the employer, so it's best to steer clear of workwear. Buy for the hours either side of the job.

Different roles have slightly different days, though the shifts look similar across most of them:

Gifts for early and late shifts

Shift work plays havoc with sleep. If someone's starting at silly o'clock one week and finishing after midnight the next, anything that helps them rest is a winner.

• A sunrise alarm clock, which brightens slowly before the alarm and makes a 4am start feel a bit less brutal.
• A proper sleep mask and good earplugs, for sleeping through the afternoon after a night turn.
• A blackout blind, if they don't already have one, for the same reason.
• A flask that keeps tea hot for a whole shift, and an insulated food container so a meal break at 2am can be something better than a vending machine.
• A good rucksack. Railway staff carry more than you'd think between home and work.

A departure board for the station they work from

This one's for the enthusiasts, and for anyone who commutes to their depot by train.

TrainTicker Desktop is a compact amber LED board, 320 x 80 mm, that shows live departures from any National Rail station in Great Britain. Set it to the station they work from and they can see at a glance what's running, what's late and what's been cancelled, along with the reason given. The calling points scroll underneath and there's a clock with seconds along the bottom, so it looks very much like the real thing on the platform. Station notices, like engineering works, scroll along too.

For a shift worker, a couple of details matter:

• It dims itself to 15% between 10pm and 7am, and the button on the back has four brightness levels, so it can be turned down during the day too.
• They can filter by destination or platform, or set their walking time to the station so it hides the trains they couldn't make.

It uses live data from Darwin, National Rail's train information system, checked every 10 seconds. There's no subscription, just £199.99 once. If you're buying as a team, that splits nicely across a few colleagues. You can see exactly what it would show on the free live demo, no signup required, and our explainer on what the status words on a departure board mean is worth a read if you're new to all this yourself.

Gifts for rest days

Days off are precious when they so often land midweek. Give them something to fill one well:

• A meal out or a night away, booked for one of their rest days so it doesn't clash with the roster.
• An experience they'd never do on a work day, from a spa to a football match.
• For the enthusiasts, a day on a heritage railway or a footplate experience, which is a different thing entirely from driving a modern unit. Our train experience gifts guide has ideas.

A watch, the old railway gift

Timekeeping has always been part of railway life. It was the railways that brought standard time to Britain, starting in the 1840s, as towns gave up their own local clocks to match the trains. A good watch is still a lovely present for someone whose working day runs to the minute, and it's a classic retirement present, too. If you're shopping for that moment, see our retirement gifts for railway workers.

Ordering and delivery

TrainTicker ships within 3 to 4 weeks, tracked. Mark the order as a gift at checkout and you can add a note, which is printed on the packing slip with no prices. Add their email address and they'll be sent their setup code and a short how-to when it ships. Setup takes about 3 minutes from a phone, no app needed, and every order comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. For more on shift-friendly presents for people who travel to work by train, see our list of gifts for train commuters.