please empty your brain below
Thank you for the information, I am looking forward to watching the daily videos. Glad Geoff had good weather at Penzance for the start of his endeavour.

John | 11.05.17 - 7:13 a.m. | #

Geoff and Vicki are doing a fantastic job promoting all the wonderful scenery available in Britain and the enjoyment of catching it all by train.
Watch out Michael Portillo.

Roger French | 11.05.17 - 7:37 a.m. | #

Yes, it's a great project. Good luck to them. Think a lot of this sort of stuff (including your writings) inspires others, even if they are not such completists. Surely there will now be more people visiting St Ives, and possibly Feniton or walking the North Downs Way as a result of your endeavours. I for one assumed the NDW started in Guildford, having walked the "first" section towards Box Hill a while back. Will now have to go find the proper beginning. Wouldn't do to miss a bit out.

By the way Feniton autocorrects to Fenton on my dog.

Lorenzo | 11.05.17 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Geoff is obviously a man of many accomplishments. On March 1st this year I was strolling round the stands of a trade show (Broadcast Video Expo) at the Excel Centre when one of the tech guys on a stand had a face that looked familiar and, yes, it was Geoff Marshall, who was able to chat for a few minutes before getting back to the serious business of video.

One thing that slipped out was that he'd had tea with DG the night before so there is at least one person in the country who knows the true identity of DG!

RayL | 11.05.17 - 8:07 a.m. | #

Although I hadn't delved into the detail of this venture I had assumed from the title that they were actually getting off at each station. Seemingly not which obviously makes the task a tad easier but it's still a challenge.

dg writes: Hardly "a tad easier", it actually makes the task possible. For example, just the Heart of Wales line from Swansea to Shrewsbury, with 34 stations but only four trains a day, would take a week to complete.

Having done an All Line Rover a few times in the past I have very fond memories of a week covering the scenic lines of Western Scotland, Settle and Carlisle, running down through Wales and then into the West Country. This was when BR still existed and only 1 train in the entire week was late and that was the last one back to London. The itinerary I did then would not be possible now as I used a ferry up the west coast of Scotland between Fort William and Kyle of Lochlash.

Perhaps I need to explore some bits of the rail network I haven't done before?

PC | 11.05.17 - 8:47 a.m. | #

Not getting out at every station - 3 months.

Getting out at every station - 11 months.

I hope you can see why we chose the former. 😃

Geofftech | 11.05.17 - 9:32 a.m. | #

My father did the All Line Rover in the 80s/90s . He did it First Class And visited Scotland and Camborne Cornwall twice in the week.

Cornish Monkey | 11.05.17 - 10:27 a.m. | #

@ Geofftech

Saves something for when you "retire" then?

UltraMan | 11.05.17 - 10:35 a.m. | #

PC: although you cannot get the ferry you mention these days, you can still, I think, get a ferry from Mallaig to (place on Skye), then a bus to Kyle (going over the bridge). We did this a couple of years ago, and it was glorious. (The Stagecoach website was rubbish, but fortunately the bus service was much better than the website had promised.)

Malcolm | 11.05.17 - 12:08 p.m. | #

The trouble with being a completest is what to do if the set you've completed changes after you've done. I see Chris and Vicki's list of stations to visit will actually increase during their trip when Cambridge North opens, and if they take too long over it they'll have to visit Kenilworth as well.

By 1980 I had travelled on all the routes shown on the BR timetable map, and had therefore in theory passed through, although not necessarily stopped at, all the stations on the network (except Frome, I later realised).
Many stations have re-opened on those lines since then. Many new lines have also opened - some of them are short spurs with no new stations on them, like the one at Bicester, but others include several stations. As many of them are in widely-scattered parts of Scotland, Wales, or the North Country, I haven't got round to visiting them all. And I'm not sure if the Airdrie/Bathgate line should count, as the only time I've travelled on that I was asleep in bed!

And I still haven't been through Frome!

timbo | 11.05.17 - 1:23 p.m. | #

I've been encouraging and assisting Owen Dunn's similar project for many years. He's doing it the slow way, getting on or off a train at each station. The first 899 stations have taken 13 years, so we'll be about 65 by the time the project's finished.

Ben Harris | Homepage | 11.05.17 - 1:42 p.m. | #

@PC
"This was when BR still existed and only 1 train in the entire week was late and that was the last one back to London."

We've been on trains for seven days now (1 week) nothing has been cancelled and only one train has been 6 minutes late.

Geofftech | 11.05.17 - 1:46 p.m. | #

Something I keep wondering is what the (theoretical) minimum time to visit all stations on the national network (on a Tube Challenge basis) would be.

My guesstimate is that it would be six to eight weeks (and that the limit might be determined by the 'one train a week' stations). Then there is the question of what the effect of including and excluding non-National Rail stations, non train connections, non public transport connections, etc.

Also what it might have been in times past.

Jeremy | 11.05.17 - 2:21 p.m. | #

There's another completist, David Brewer, who has photographed every railway station in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36196948.

I'm not sure how this achievement fits in with the rules and methods adopted by the other railway station completists but it deserves a big mention.

andy gryce | 11.05.17 - 2:46 p.m. | #

@Geofftech - surely you can get out at most stations, just make sure you get back on the train before it leaves!

Jump out, photo, back on. Boom.

Gav | 11.05.17 - 3:14 p.m. | #

I'm pretty sure we have got a photo of every station so far, yes. But the were not just focusing on stations but the people and places that use and are near the railways too. This isn't just about trains.

Geofftech | 11.05.17 - 3:34 p.m. | #

@Gav

What about trains that stop to set down / pick up only?

Pedantic Timbo | 11.05.17 - 5:56 p.m. | #

Excellent project - good luck Geoff & Vicki.

I am well on my way to travelling over every line in the London travelcard zones, but as that has taken the best part of 10 years, doing the whole country is unfortunately beyond me.

Jimbo | 11.05.17 - 6:13 p.m. | #

Malcolm, it is Armadale on Skye.

Al | 12.05.17 - 7:39 a.m. | #

DG Thanks for alerting us to this. What a fascinating adventure.

Clicking on the stations map does make me doubt the accuracy of the passenger numbers data. Courour (trainspotting the film...) is stated to have 30 entries/exits per day. At a remote halt in the middle of Rannoch Moor with no road access - 30 passengers per day just doesn't ring true....

dg writes: Corrour may be exceptionally remote, but there's a restaurant/B&B beside the station, which looks glorious.

IslandDweller | 12.05.17 - 10:57 a.m. | #

@Island Dweller - every time I've been there are a few people getting on and off, there's walking, cycling and as well as the B&B DG mentions, there's a Youth Hostel a walk away too - https://www.syha.org.uk/where-to-stay/highlands/loch-ossian.aspx

In the summer it gets fairly busy!

Gav | 12.05.17 - 11:16 a.m. | #

Wow, what a fun adventure! Good luck Geoff & Vicki!
Thanks for alerting us to it DG.

Cornish Cockney | 12.05.17 - 7:56 p.m. | #

Here is another one, though a bit patchy

http://thepointlessquest.blogspot.co.uk

Anonymous | 12.05.17 - 8:01 p.m. | #

@ Geofftech - the reference to only one of my trains being late was more a defence of BR than it was a "swipe" at current day TOCs. We all know how people perceived BR in the 80s and I didn't find it to be like that despite riding on very different types of service.

I don't subscribe to the common perception that today's railways are a disaster either. Yes, things go wrong and operational responses are different now to 30+ years ago but then there are far more people travelling now so you have different risks to manage. I don't doubt that most of your journeys will be perfectly fine over 3 months but you will, at some point, be delayed or disrupted but it's unlikely to prove "fatal" to your endeavour.

PC | 14.05.17 - 10:49 a.m. | #











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