Me and trains - the purpose of the blog

I've always liked travelling on trains. I wouldn't describe myself as a train spotter (indeed I believe the quest I'm engaged in is called "line bashing"). I'm sort of interested in the different types of trains you see travelling around, in as much as one is interested in seeing anything that's different from the everyday, but ultimately it's the journey for me. As a child I loved standing on the local station, watching the lines curving away into the distance, thinking of all the places that they could take me to. Even now when doing my tedious commute to work I'm aware that the bit of track I'm on is joined to every other bit of track on the mainland (and I guess the Continent too now!) and it's a curiously liberating feeling. I know that roads take you away as well, but it's just not the same. Railways snake along in cuttings and tunnels, rush unseen through remote parts of the countryside, then burst into another place entirely, a world away from the one you left behind. Also the notion of experiencing the rows of figures in a timetable transforming into a real journey gives me a bizarre sense of satisfaction that I can't really explain!

This blog is my record of a "pointless quest" that I have been engaged in for some years. That is, to travel on every current passenger rail route in the United Kingdom by the time that I hit 40. The rules that I am following are not necessarily consistent. Broadly speaking I have to travel every bit of railway line that has a passenger service, even if it is just one a week. However I am ignoring the loops that join two lines to allow a couple of through trains a day (the single train from Birmingham New Street to Stratford or the Brighouse to Mirfield train that avoids Huddersfield) - though if I can do them, I will. The general rule of thumb is that if there are actual stations on a little-used route I will cover it (eg Pontefract to Goole).

I'm not sure when the quest developed. I started to make an effort to see some of the UK (by train!) in about 1998, and usually tried to use different routes there and back. Gradually the lines on the map began to "fill in" and I thought it might be fun to fill the lot in, and see a lot of nice places at the same time. Then eventually I decided to finish the quest and fill the lines in, then see the places later on. And now that I'm nearly there, I've decided a bit belatedly to start documenting my travels, just for my own memories.