A true home-grown family business in operation for over 50 years, Rails of Sheffield has grown to become one of Europe’s largest model railway retailers and an industry leader. The business dispatches to customers worldwide via Railsofsheffield.com and its immensely popular eBay store, turning over multi-millions in revenue.

Origins - 1970 to Early 1980s

Founded by Hedley Barber in December 1970, Rails’ early trade was in buying and selling second-hand model railways, something that remains at the heart of the business to this very day. 

Working from the back of Hedley’s shop on Holmesdale Road, Dronfield on the southern outskirts of Sheffield, interest grew steadily throughout the decade and by the early-1980s, Rails was a fixture at toy fairs and swap meets such as the regular Buxton Pavilion Fair. Between then and 2000, the team regularly attended thousands of events across the UK - building a loyal customer base.

Launching the Store - 1980s to 1990s

With a growing legion of regular customers building up, a ‘proper’ shop was required, and Rails moved to 35 Chesterfield Road in Heeley Bottom, a few doors away from the current shop. From here, Rails also expanded its mail order operation and its advertisements became a familiar sight in publications.

In the early-1990s Rails moved to 29 Chesterfield Road and established the first part of its permanent base. In 1996, the neighbouring shop unit (No. 27) was acquired and a period of rapid expansion followed. 

By the late-1990s, Rails had launched its first website and was pioneering online model railway retail for both new and second hand items. The late-1990s also saw the growth of the ‘limited edition’ business – with many exclusive liveries commissioned from major manufacturers.

Rapid Expansion - 2000s

The ability to promote and sell rare and collectable model trains all over the world transformed the second-hand business, a process accelerated with the advent of eBay in the early-2000s. Today, Rails is the largest model railway eBay shop in the UK and one of the biggest in the world. To feed this expanding business, the Barber family scoured the country (and occasionally further afield) acquiring model railway collections. 

As the business grew, so did the shop, with No’s. 21, 23 and 25 Chesterfield Road purchased in the 2000s and then a series of nearby buildings and offices added to house the blossoming eBay business, storage, sorting and packing departments.

A New Era - 2010s to 2020s

Sadly, Hedley Barber passed away on August 11th 2015, leaving his son John, grandsons Adam and Oliver and John’s wife Tracy to manage the company he founded, with support from other family members and long-serving staff. Remaining a family operated business, Rails continued to thrive into the late 2010s.

A major milestone was the opening of the impressive new showroom in 2018, which features beautiful displays of popular locomotives and rolling stock framed amongst real Sheffield steel, stone walling and other natural materials. This was the catalyst for the refurbishment of the entire ‘front of house’ shop, now occupying five formerly separate units at 21-29 Chesterfield Road. 

Rails also branched out into new areas such as commissioning its own exclusive model products under the new ‘Rails Limited’ brand, bringing new models to the public such as the Stroudley ‘Terrier’ steam locomotive with Dapol and North Eastern Railway Electric Autocar with Heljan.

In 2021, Rails opened its all new purpose-built warehouse in Dronfield. This multi-million pound development enabled Rails to move all warehousing and administration to this new site to streamline the business and continue to provide customers with the top-tier service they had become accustomed to.

Rails of Sheffield

Despite five decades of growth and its transformation into a national and worldwide retailer, Rails continues to play a major role in the South Yorkshire community it was founded to serve, supplying train sets to local families at Christmas and selling everything from rail joiners and track to collectable large-scale locomotives valued at thousands of pounds. With exciting plans in place for further expansion and development of the business, Rails continues to have a bright future.

And finally, if you’ve ever wondered about the origin of the Rails name, it’s all down to Hedley’s proper Yorkshire attitude to spending money. The original shop on Chesterfield Road had previously been ‘The Sheffield Photographic Centre’; rather than buying a new sign, he simply recycled five of the red plastic letters from the old shop front and rearranged them into the name - ‘RAILS’!