Above Rails

LNER wanted to appeal to younger travellers and grow their social audience - without sounding like a train company trying too hard to appeal to younger travellers.

They needed something self-aware, entertaining, and capable of travelling beyond their existing audience.

For April Fools, we created Above Rails - a reality TV parody inspired by Below Deck, following the “crew drama” aboard an LNER Azuma train.

All the usual reality show chaos was there: workplace tension, onboard romance, emotional buscuits-related incidents. Just on a train instead of a yacht.

Built as a cinematic launch trailer with supporting social cutdowns, the campaign was designed to feel more like a streaming release than a transport ad.

 LNER’s best-performing organic campaign of the period.

• 100k+ organic views in under 24 hours
• Around 70% of views came from non-followers
• Outperformed previous paid social campaigns
• Press coverage and celebrity interactions across social

The audience response was largely people asking for the show to become real.

Which, for a fake train-based reality series launched on April Fools, felt reasonably encouraging.