Meet the Team

Mark Brennan - Tailormade Sales Team Manager

I have been at Great Rail Journeys since 2015, with experience in organising both escorted holidays, and tailormade itineraries.

In this time I have been lucky enough to experience some of the most iconic trains, with the highlight being a journey on the Venice Simplon-Orient Express, the glamour, glitz, luxury and the whole experience was unforgettable.

I have also been on the Rocky Mountaineer, the Glacier Express and the Bernina express, and travelled to over 40 countries, in Africa, Asia, America, Europe and Oceania.

I have a passion for delivering first class service, and holidays to our customers, and love nothing more than to create bespoke itineraries for people to experience their dream holidays.

James Eaton - Tailormade Holiday Expert

I started working at Great Rail Journeys in August 2009 within the escorted holiday reservations department. Here I gained invaluable experience about all types of train holidays which helped me enormously when I transferred over to the highly-trained Tailormade team. I've travelled on train all across the world the most impressive of which, in my opinion, were in Alaska, Canada, Switzerland and the deep south of America.  I have a real passion for helping fellow travellers put together their dream holidays and thrive on creating both simple and complex itineraries. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than hearing about how much people enjoyed the holidays I helped to arrange once they're back at home.

James Starkie - Tailormade Travel Expert

I have been working for GRJ Independent for over 5 years now. My main job role is to book all of the rail tickets for our customers' holidays and assist with any rail related queries or issues. I also support the reservations team with quotes and bookings and double as a Tailormade Holiday Specialist.

The job satisfaction in this role is very high, as it is a great feeling to be able to work somewhere that creates lasting holiday experiences for our customers. Working here has also given me plenty of travel inspiration to visit new destinations and I am always thinking about where to go next!

One of the highlights of the job has to be the educational trips that are arranged through our suppliers, allowing us to test our products first-hand and make sure they're suitable for travellers. I was lucky enough to do a once-in-a-lifetime trip with Rocky Mountaineer, travel the Glacier Express, and stay in some amazing luxury hotels around the world.

Rihanna Coote - Tailormade Travel Expert

I have been working at Great Rail Journeys for around 7 years in a variety of roles. Starting back in 2014 as part of our Contact Centre team right at the start of the customer journey. Then in 2017 I completed a placement year within the Product and Contracts team, furthering my knowledge behind the scenes on putting the packages together and working with our suppliers. After graduating with my Tourism Management degree in 2018; I began working in the Escorted sales team. This role gave me extensive knowledge into our customers and our rail holidays, which led me to moving into the Tailormade team as of January 2021.

I now have my dream role of creating our customers dream itineraries all around the world, one of my key highlights has to be hearing how much people enjoy their travels and wish to travel with us again. I have been lucky myself to experience trips with the company to the Isle of Man, all around Scotland and more recently a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. The key highlights of these trips has to be seeing the sunrise over Angkor Wat and exploring the beautiful highland scenery of Scotland and travelling over the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct.