Formal methods and tools have been successfully applied to the development of safety-critical systems for decades, particularly in the transport domain, yet no single language or tool has emerged as the dominant solution. In the railway industry, formal methods are strongly recommended by current safety standards, but their effective application still requires bridging the gap between the models commonly used by engineers and those required by formal analysis tools. Drawing on our experience with a variety of industrial case studies, we discuss how formal methods and tools can support the modelling and analysis of railway systems in practice. We highlight successful applications, lessons learned, and remaining challenges to the wider adoption of formal methods in railway engineering.