Window Seater

Window Seater Connecting passengers to the world outside their window We believe bliss is to sit by a window on a journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

We make tech that helps travellers forget tech, and instead explore the astonishing world passing by their window seat. WindowSeater makes that even better by occasionally telling you something amazing about what you can see. We're launching soon, so sign up to stay informed.

🚆 Turning the London to Edinburgh train journey into a live storytelling adventure for kids has just earned Window Seate...
23/07/2026

🚆 Turning the London to Edinburgh train journey into a live storytelling adventure for kids has just earned Window Seater a place as a Digital and Technology Excellence finalist at the National Transport Awards 2026. ✨

This is one of the biggest recognitions in UK transport, covering bus, rail, ferry and more — so being shortlisted alongside major operators is a real moment.

Here's how Window Seater for children works: scan a QR code at your seat and the journey turns into audio tales, quizzes and games that reveal themselves as the train rolls past castles, coastline and landmarks along the way. Built for families, no download needed.

📱 One QR scan and you're in — no app, no fuss
🎧 People spend an average of 16 minutes listening, learning and playing
đź‘Ť A 20%+ lift in how passengers feel about the journey

The ceremony takes place on 1 October in London. 🤞

One mosque. A Hungarian Jewish linguist. A British architect. An Indian Muslim princess. And HG Wells blowing it all up....
25/06/2026

One mosque. A Hungarian Jewish linguist. A British architect. An Indian Muslim princess. And HG Wells blowing it all up.

When The War of the Worlds was written in 1898, Wells imagined Martians laying waste to the Surrey countryside — and specifically described the destruction of the mosque visible from his Woking home.

That mosque is still there. Still standing. Still the only grade one listed mosque in Britain. And it has a quite extraordinary origin story.

The Shah Jahan Mosque was completed in 1889 — the first purpose-built mosque in Britain. The man behind it, Professor Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, was born in Budapest into a Jewish family, translated for the British during the Crimean War, and reportedly mastered fifty languages. He came to Woking to build an institute of cross-cultural learning and the mosque was the first thing he built.

The architect William Isaac Chambers, from Guildford — who had never designed a mosque — travelled the world for inspiration and produced something that draws on Indian Mughal architecture, Turkish and Egyptian detail, and landed in a Surrey field looking like nothing else the country had seen.

And the lady who funded it was Shah Jahan Begum, the ruler of Bhopal — a Muslim princess and one of the most powerful women in 19th century India.

A Jewish polymath. An English architect working from scratch. A Muslim patron. The building alone carries that spirit — and Wells knew it 🕌

Find out more in this audio story — and dozens more like it — on Window Seater's London to Southampton audio guide. Download the app and hear it as you pass by, all for free 🚆🎧

Big news — Window Seater's children's guide for LNER has been shortlisted for the Application of Digital Technology Awar...
20/05/2026

Big news — Window Seater's children's guide for LNER has been shortlisted for the Application of Digital Technology Award at the RIA RISE Awards 2026, the Railway Industry Association's annual celebration of the best of the UK rail sector! ✨

Scan a QR code at your seat and the London to Edinburgh journey becomes a live storytelling adventure 🚆🗺️👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Audio tales, maps and games that unlock as the train passes castles, coastline and landmarks along the way - all with no need for an app to download.

🎧 Nearly 16 minutes of average listening time
đź‘Ť A 20%+ rise in passenger satisfaction

Winners announced 25 June 🤞

Five years. Almost two miles of solid limestone. Nearly 4,000 men.Isambard Kingdom Brunel called it progress. Parliament...
02/04/2026

Five years. Almost two miles of solid limestone. Nearly 4,000 men.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel called it progress. Parliament called it a health concern.

Box Tunnel, just outside Bath, was driven through hard manual labour in the 1840s. Nearly 4,000 navvies blasted the limestone, shifted the rock and cut the railway out of the ground.

Shortened from navigators, the name came from the canal workers of the century before. These were the men who built much of the infrastructure of a country.

They also, by all accounts, drank as hard as they worked. They were not especially popular with the local townsfolk.

While all of that was going on, Brunel was being questioned in Parliament about whether passengers would make it through comfortably at all. People worried about the fumes, the darkness, the speed, and the sheer strangeness of travelling through that much solid rock at pace.

Victorian ladies, it was suggested, might swoon.

The idea of lighting the tunnel was raised.

Brunel’s response was classic Brunel. If that was the standard, they would need to light the entire line from London to Bristol after dark.

So the tunnel stayed dark.

And that tension is what makes Box Tunnel so interesting now. It is not just a feat of engineering. It is a story about labour, public anxiety, ambition and ego on a huge scale.

Nearly 200 years later, trains still run through it every day. Most passengers sit with their phones out, completely unaware of what it took to build the thing they are travelling through.

Brunel was not a man who built quietly. He wanted the world to see what was possible.

The irony is that the greatest testament to his vision is how unremarkable it all feels now. đźš‚

11/03/2026

A children’s story from wartime London.

This is one of the stories in the Window Seater London North Eastern Railway children’s guide, helping younger listeners and families discover the people, places and history along the journey between London and Edinburgh.

As the landscape changes outside the window, the guide brings the route to life through stories for children, along with quizzes and dedicated maps.

Scan the QR code at your seat on any LNER train between London and Edinburgh, select the Window Seater children’s guide, and start listening.

01/03/2026

Dolgarrog, 1925.
After days of heavy rain, a dam failed above this North Wales village.
16 people died.
Hear the full story in the Window Seater app.

23/02/2026

Before the age of trains took over, a steam-powered bus was already running between Cheltenham and Gloucester.

It worked and ran four times a day.

Then opposition stepped in. Higher tolls, delibertely damaged roads, and pressure from horse-coach owners brought it to an early end.

It only lasted four months, but it changed what people believed was possible with steam powered travel.

Hear the full story on your journey.
Get the Window Seater app.

Train journey today? Listen as you travel.We create free, geolocated audio guides that play stories about the places you...
13/02/2026

Train journey today? Listen as you travel.

We create free, geolocated audio guides that play stories about the places you pass by train across the UK.
On selected services, scan the QR code at your seat and start listening.
You can also browse routes before you travel.

windowseater.com/guides

08/02/2026

A lighthouse, a storm, and a rescue!

This clip is from our London North Eastern Railway children’s guide, with Gail the goose telling the story of Grace Darling’s brave resuce mission on the Northumberland coast.

Scan the QR code at your seat on any London North Eastern Railway train between London and Edinburgh, select the Window Seater children's guide, and start listening. Window Seater is also available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

03/02/2026

Classic film locations and local history right outside your train window.

This clip is from our Grand Central Rail guide, linking the East Durham “black beaches” seen in 1971's Michael Caine gangster film Get Carter to what the coastline looks like today.

Scan the QR code at your seat on any Grand Central Rail train and select Window Seater to start listening. Window Seater is also available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

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Dolgarrog

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