Riding the rails

In his latest book, Nige Tassell travelled to the end of the line on 16 routes across Britain, discovering just how vital our railways still are to locals and tourists alike. And all without a single delay...

- 

Who doesn't love a long-distance train journey? Agatha Christie did. “To travel by train,” she once observed, “is to see nature and human beings, towns and churches and rivers - in fact, to see life.” A.A. Milne was another fan. A railway carriage is “the ideal place in which to think,” he declared, “the ideal place in which to be happy”.

That's always been the appeal of train travel for me, too - especially stretched-out, unhurried long-distance journeys where the eye needn't pay attention to the clock and instead can leisurely take in the world just outside the window. Letting the train take the strain gives you the time and space to consider and cogitate. And it offers you a fresh perspective on the countryside - from a different angle and at close quarters - with widescreen vista after widescreen vista. Train travel bisects the landscape, giving you a front-row seat. It truly is the king of all transport.

With the calendar turning on a new year and a working life that saw me becoming a permanent fixture at the kitchen table, I needed that fresh perspective. So I devised a plan: I would travel on a variety of railway lines, riding every mile from point of departure to final destination, staying on board until each train reached the buffers. I would be the last man sitting. Then I'd have a good old-fashioned nose-around wherever it was that we'd terminated. Often it was a place I would never have expected or needed to visit. It might be a disused ferry port. Or a seaside resort being reclaimed by the waves. Or a well-turned-out spa town high up in the hills. These places all had one thing in common: they could all be found at the end of the line.