Visit every station?

[jrhilton]

Apologies if these two questions have been asked before (a search could't find them) - how quickly could you in theory do the following:

1) Travel through ever station on the national rail network (the trains don't have to stop).

2) Stop at every station on the national rail network (the trains have to stop but you don't have to get out and wait for the next).

I'm guessing more than a week for both, but maybe it wouldn't be?

 

[Twoonthebuzzer]

Unless you have a lot of time on your hands then I'm guessing nearer a month for the latter!

 

[HST Power]

If the Government paid me track bashing benefits I'd be doing it right now!

The above is probably right.

 

[John @ home]

how quickly could you ...

1) Travel through every station on the national rail network (the trains don't have to stop).

In 1974, it was possible for me to plan an itinerary to travel to or through every station in Scotland using a 7-day Freedom of Scotland ticket. I didn't quite achieve every station due to operating difficulties, and re-openings in the last 37 years would make the task a bit more difficult now.

But that was just Scotland. Doing this for Great Britain would be an order of magnitude longer.

Stopping at every station would be much longer still.

 

[krus_aragon]

In 1974, it was possible for me to plan an itinerary to travel to or through every station in Scotland using a 7-day Freedom of Scotland ticket.

I had a look at doing something similar in Wales recently, and came to the conclusion that it would take roughly 50-60 hours to pass through all the stations in Wales (as well as Shrewsbury-Hereford, Chester).

 

[Sloppyjag]

And how would you go about stopping at all the request stops?

Letting the guard on the 13:14 Swansea to Shrewsbury know that you'd like the train to stop at Bynea (but you won't be getting off) AND Llangennoch (but you won't be getting off) AND Pontarddulais (but you won't be getting off)...and that's only 3 of 16 request stops on that line alone...you're not going to be very popular and the guard may well be within his rights to refuse.

Of course there is a chance the train may stop anyway but in practice you may have to alight and wait 3 to 5 hours for the next service. This could add days, more likely weeks, to tick off all those wee shacks.

 

[Wyvern]

Ben Brooksbank set out to photograph stations all over the country and he's spent a lifetime at it.

PS: Actually he seems to have had a thing about stations beginning with B.

 

[NightatLaira]

I once set out to go through every single London Underground station on the network in one day with a few friends as part of a university joke. It was very, very boring - but we kind of managed it. This was back in the days when you could drink on the trains. We all had a six pack each to get through to keep us occupied and we began at 6am at Woodford on the Central line, did the Hainault loop and Woodford to Epping and back. This took over an hour.

Woodford to West Ruislip. Then Back into London, buy now it was about 9am.

Full clockwise circuit of the Circle line start/finish Notting Hill Gate.

now 10am, Hammersmith and City NHG to Hammersmith and then full length to Whitechapel.

District eastbound to Upminster, then westbound to Richmond.

Back on ourselves up to Earls Court then down and back to Wimbledon. It's now lunchtime and we're all quite drunk.

Buy another six pack and have some food - getting a bit fed up with underground trains now, so we give ourselves a 1hr break and get the bus to South Wimbledon.

Northern line to Morden, then full length to Edgware, down to Clapham on the Charing X Branch which we hadn't done yet, cross over to a High Barnet Branch at Euston. Don't bother with Mill Hill East.

It's now about 3.30pm

We do the full lengths of the Victoria (fairly quick), Bakerloo (quick), Piccadilly (back then Heathrow was a circuituous turnaround - no terminal 5 station), Jubilee, (quicker). East London (quick), but don't bother with New Cross Gate. It's now about 7pm.

Have another well deserved break above ground. Toilet stops, etc

We finally finish with the Waterloo & City over to Bank, and a full length Aldgate to Amersham on the Metropolitan.

We called it a day at about 10pm, having not done the Docklands but having done most of all the other lines

We did about 200 miles in one day (we reckoned) and covered 95% of the network if you don't count Docklands, and 'doubling up areas' such as where there are three lines using the same bit of track (e.g. circle line), or two tracks running more or less together - such as Piccadilly, Central and District lines in West London.

Quite impressive but I wouldn't do it again, even with the friends and the beers - it got a bit boring! The worst bits were trying to find toilet stops for everyone.

 

[jrhilton]

Of course there is a chance the train may stop anyway but in practice you may have to alight and wait 3 to 5 hours for the next service. This could add days, more likely weeks, to tick off all those wee shacks.

A very good point, for question two, I wonder if it would therefore actually be quicker to stop at each station by car, rather than by train.

What about Network Rail's NMT, how long does it take for it to go over all of the network or does it only go over certain parts?

 

[krus_aragon]

What about Network Rail's NMT, how long does it take for it to go over all of the network or does it only go over certain parts?

There are at least three different measurement trains that have to be used in order to access all parts of the network: as well as the HST-based flying banana you have the ex-sprinter class 950 for branch lines, and the cambrian now needs its (mkI/II?) measurement vehicles to be hauled by class 97/3 locos.

 

[imagination]

And how would you go about stopping at all the request stops?

Letting the guard on the 13:14 Swansea to Shrewsbury know that you'd like the train to stop at Bynea (but you won't be getting off) AND Llangennoch (but you won't be getting off) AND Pontarddulais (but you won't be getting off)...and that's only 3 of 16 request stops on that line alone...you're not going to be very popular and the guard may well be within his rights to refuse.

Of course there is a chance the train may stop anyway but in practice you may have to alight and wait 3 to 5 hours for the next service. This could add days, more likely weeks, to tick off all those wee shacks.

One solution would be to arrange for people to help you out. 2 request stops per person - one for them to get on, the other for them to get off. If necessary the person could travel with you across several lines.

In order to minimise time you would probably want to both start and finish at ends of dead end lines in order to avoid doing them twice. For example you may want to put your start/end points at 2 of Wick, Mallaig and Pwllheli. Every other branch/dead end section of track with no way to loop back than the two you choose will have to be done at least twice.

 

[Super Sprinter]

Already a thread on this very issue.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=49523

The difference here is the need to actually get off the train at every station.

 

[Flamingo]

I was going to say you need to get out more, but thinking about it, you probably need to stay in more!