National Rail All Lines Challenge

[Handy Andy]

I did a LU dash just over a year ago and just a few weeks ago completed a dash of the West Yorkshire Metro using LU dash rules, I'm now flirting with the idea of the National Rail All Lines Challenge and trying to decide what rules I should follow.

For dashing one has to arrive or leave at every station by the relevant train which rules out expresses.
Bashing, something which railway enthuisiasts do, requires you to pass over the route and therefore permits non stop expresses.

Does anyone have any opinions on which set of rules should be used and also what the previous records were based on...

It has been done! From the 1994 Guinness Book.

Alan M Witton of Chorlton, Manchester visited every open British Rail station (2362) in a continuous tour for charity of 26,703 km (16,593 miles) in 452 hr 26.5min from 13 Jul - 28 Aug 1980.

Colin M Mulvany and Seth N Vafiadis of west London visited every open British Rail station (2378) embracing also the Tyne & Wear, Glasgow and London underground systems (333 stations) for charity in 31 days 5hr 8min 58sec. THey travelled over 24,989 km (15,528 miles) to average 61.2 km/h (38.1 mph) from 4 Jun - 5 Jul 1984.

I am slightly confused about the time in the first record. 452 hours is about 19 days which is not consistent with the dates given.

[jonny]

I think the more practical for a whole Network challenge of the UK is obviously bashing and I believe others have done this in the past. Dashing the whole country would take far too long.

[Soup Dragon]

The easiest way to find out would be to create an account on the Guinness website and send them your proposal for visiting all NR stations. If they still have this record on the books they will be able to provide you with a list of rules which will dictate if you have to go for the bashing or dashing approach.

In regards to your LU dash, I assume you mean you did the full London Underground network, visiting all stations. If that's the case would be interested to know your time and if you succesfully completed all stations?

[Lancaster Gate]

Back in February 2000 a guy called David Slater tried to pass through as many stations as possible in one week to raise money for charity, he was hoping to do 1000 but he had to settle for 738. He put a detailed story of the week's events on the web but his website has since vanished, however it's still available via the Web Archive. Here's the URL, hope this is of interest even though he didn't try to cover the whole rail network:

http://web.archive.org/web/200105032130 ... h.cwc.net/

[Richard Head]

Are now this is something I have always wanted to do, I have a big interest in trains, but am not that keen on tube stock & don't really know the all the different stocks!

[jbom1]

I'd guess that it might mean 452 hr 26.5min of active travelling, with the watch being stopped overnight each evening and starting again from the same location the next morning.

[palkanetoijala31]

So u say there is 2362 stations in the whole of the uk.? and the record is 19 days are u allowed for instance at say Mallaig to get off the train and drive to kyle of lochalsh and then go to inverness.?

This would save a considerable amount of time for example.

[Handy Andy]

Thanks for all your replies. I will send an email to GWR and see what they come up with. We did complete the tube dash last Easter, at the third attempt. Our time was 19 hours 5 minutes and some number of seconds. It was with three University friends from York.

I'll let you all know when GWR reply, which, based on what I've read around here, that could be quite some time.

Andrew

[Mitchell&BrownLook]

This thread may also be of interest to you as an alternative Andi.

[RichieG]

As an 'All Lines' how would you define it?

Would you, for instance, have to do the line between the two Yeovil stations? Or would it be more like 'our' All Lines Challenge where simply travelling on a line operated by one TOC count? This brings us back to a point I raised in the post I just did in the other thread - if a line (in its entirety - take some of the Open Access Operators like Grand Central or Hull Trains) duplicates another route then does that route have to be taken twice for both operators?

Otherwise, the challenge is the same as the 'All Stations' just with a different name!

[Wanstead]

Back in February 2000 a guy called David Slater tried to pass through as many stations as possible in one week to raise money for charity, he was hoping to do 1000 but he had to settle for 738. He put a detailed story of the week's events on the web but his website has since vanished, however it's still available via the Web Archive. Here's the URL, hope this is of interest even though he didn't try to cover the whole rail network:

http://web.archive.org/web/200105032130 ... h.cwc.net/

If you were going to try and cover 1000 stations why not concentrate your efforts where the stops are the the most densely clustered? (So Home Counties, West Midlands, South and West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Manchester, Merseyside, Tyneside, Central Belt of Scotland...)

[Sam]

As an 'All Lines' how would you define it?
Would you, for instance, have to do the line between the two Yeovil stations?
Otherwise, the challenge is the same as the 'All Stations' just with a different name!

Good Luck getting between them on a public service, unless engineering work on FGW pushes them round the curve....

[RichieG]

Good Luck getting between them on a public service, unless engineering work on FGW pushes them round the curve....

My point exactly

[Sam]

Well, by pure chance, the weekend i've decided to visit the folks, trains to Yeovil Junction every other hour are on diverstion via Westbury so i'll get to round the Pen Mill/Junction curve

[tangy]

Haven't done the Yeovil curve yet then Sam? I have already traversed it a couple of years back when FGW HSTs to EXD/PLY were on diversion via AXM. Of which some of these HSTs actaully stopped at the intermediate stations in lieu of the ususl class 159s which were withdrawn to give paths up.