tubechallenge.com

Hi folks, thinking of a challenge to do all railway stations in Hampshire in a day. Was looking on the national rail web site to look at ticketing for this. Couldn't see a rover/ranger ticket to allow for this. Any idea how I could go about this?

Two questions first of all:

How do you define Hampshire? I'm guessing the current Hampshire County Council area, plus the unitary areas of Southampton and Portsmouth. I'm also guessing you're not including the Isle of Wight, which used to be in Hampshire!

Also - how do you define "All railway stations?" Again, I'm guessing all Network Rail stations, but not including the Mid Hants Railway (plus miniature railway at Ropley!), Eastleigh Lakeside Railway, Hollycombe Steam Museum, Exbury Gardens Railway, Hythe Pier Tramway and any other minor railways I've either forgotten about or hadn't heard of! (Beaulieu Gardens Monorail?) I presume we're also only including stations that are still open, so not counting the Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway, the Meon Valley, the closed section of the Mid-Hants, the Didcot Newbury & Southampton, Southampton Terminal, stations on the Fawley branch, Longmoor Military Railway....

So that gives us:

Farnborough Main - Andover and to New Milton (plus Lymington Town and Lymington Pier)
All stations between Southampton/Eastleigh and Portsmouth Harbour (both routes).
Portsmouth direct line as far as Liphook plus Warblington & Emsworth
Aldershot-Alton (excluding Farnham)
Chandler's Ford, Romsey, Mottisfont and possibly Dean
Farnborough North, Blackwater, and Bramley.

Depending on your starting point, you may be able to make use of circular routing, where a return ticket to a location halfway round the circle is valid by more than one route. For example, shortly after lockdown, I took two circular rail trips from Reading (one to Portsmouth, going out via Guildford and back via Eastleigh - I think also valid via Southampton), and one to Romsey going out via Eastleigh and back via Salisbury and Andover (the conductors on both Romsey-Salisbury and Salisbury-Basingstoke confirmed the ticket was valid that way, but it didn't let me out at Salisbury!).

Perhaps the trickiest bit will be the stations between Southampton/Eastleigh and Fareham as you will need to complete 1.5 circuits of this route.

I think if I was doing it from Reading, I would probably go:

Reading-Basingstoke
Basingstoke-Andover and back
Basingstoke-Southampton
Southampton-Fareham-Eastleigh
Eastleigh-Romsey/Dean-Southampton
Southampton-New Milton/Lymington and return.
Southampton-Portsmouth
Portsmouth-Guildford-North Camp
Ash Vale-Alton and back
North Camp-Blackwater and back to Farnborough North
Farnborough Main-Basingstoke and home

I think that would need
* Return ticket from Reading to Portsmouth Harbour
* Return from Basingstoke to Andover
* Returns from Southampton Airport to Romsey/Dean and Fareham
* Return from Southampton Central-New Milton
* Return from Brockenhurst-Lymington
* Return from Ash Vale to Alton
* Single from Blackwater to Farnborough North
* Single from Farnborough Main to Basingstoke!

Thinking about this some more, there's an hourly bus (13) between Basingstoke and Alton. Also, as Farnborough North is only served hourly, I think I would be tempted to go:

Reading - Farnborough North (via Blackwater) - Farnborough Main - Basingstoke - Alton - Ash Vale - North Camp - Guildford - Havant - Emmsworth - Portsmouth - Fareham - Southampton - Romsey (NRES confirms that Dean is in Wiltshire!) - Eastleigh - Fareham - Southampton - New Milton - Brockenhurst - Lymington Pier - Brockenhurst - Basingstoke - Andover - Basingstoke - Reading (via Bramley).

Depending on timings, Basingstoke - Andover could alternatively be done before going down to Alton.

This would need:

Reading - Portsmouth (return) £22.75 with Network Card
Farnborough - Basingstoke (single) £5.85 (ditto)
Basingstoke - Alton (single - bus) £2
Alton - Ash Vale (single) £5.60
Havant - Emmsworth (return) £2.30
Fareham - Romsey (return) £7.75
Southampton - New Milton (return) £7.75
Brockenhurst - Lymington Pier (return) £2.30
Basingstoke - Andover (return) £5.25

TOTAL £61.55

RJSRdg wrote: ↑13 Oct 2023, 19:01 Chandler's Ford, Romsey, Mottisfont and possibly Dean

Oh, yes, must include Dean, where the boundary with Wiltshire crosses the platforms. So you must visit the eastern end of either platform where there is a sign officially welcoming you to Hampshire.

Portsmouth and that other big place the other side of Fareham are very much in Hampshire. All the national rail mainline stations.

Bit annoying if there isn't a rover ticket of any sort that can be purchased. Annoying having to nip to a ticket machine a few times during the day (I don't install apps on my phone). But makes it part of the fun.

Haven't planned a route yet, but if it goes ahead, will wait for the lighter evenings next spring.

Has anyone done a rail challenge like this? Doing a whole county in a day.

You don't have to nip to a ticket machine several times in the day.
If you book the tickets online, you can arrange to collect them all at a Fast Ticket machine at one of the larger stations.

Were it not for the fact 2024 is a Tube Olympics year, I'd suggest a "Hampshire in a Day" challenge might make quite a good (if expensive, though not as expensive as it was for me to do the FNC) summer group competitive event as it's on air-conditioned stock above ground so not subject to the extremes of temperature that the Tube is.

I did plan out a "Cornwall in a Day" trip (get the sleeper down to Penzance, do all the lines, and get the next sleeper back from Plymouth) which does have Rover ticket, but didn't get round to it this year. Maybe next year, although by then the semaphores will be gone

Kent shouldn't be too difficult on a Kent Rover ticket, and looking at the map, a fairly obvious route suggests itself.

just out of curiosity do you regard hinton admiral as in dorset as im not sure it is

Golf wrote: ↑18 Oct 2023, 18:12 just out of curiosity do you regard hinton admiral as in dorset as im not sure it is

OpenStreetMap shows the line and the station just on the Hampshire side of the boundary with Dorset!

IT also shows my junior parkrun as being very close to the dorset border lol