Blog: everythingtrains

Let’s go back a few months to when my local train operating company, Great Western Railway (GWR), approached me to talk about the startings of a monumental railway project. If you’re…

Today I was going to be embarking on a very special, once-in-a-lifetime type, railway adventure. If you have read my last blog, then you might have some idea of what I was going to be experiencing today. If you haven’t then I will explain a little about what this journey will entail now. A few…

This week I have successfully attempted to return to travelling by rail on two occasions after a 7-month gap. Even more excitingly on one of the trips I ticked off some new route to aid my lifelong fundraising challenge of travelling on every railway line in Britain! Right let’s go back to the start of…

This week is ‘World Autism Acceptance Week’ and I would like to take you on a quick whistlestop walkthrough of one of my specialist interests and passions that my neurodiversity brings along…

Today I was going on a little adventure to the South Coast of Devon. This trip was for good reason, I had been invited to a very special Great Western Railway train naming. And I had a personal involvement in the event! So, I knew that I needed to make every possible effort to attend…

Christmas felt like there was a missing piece today. Not seeing his face light up opening all the carefully selected gifts, not seeing him enjoy one more of his favourite Christmas Dinners, not seeing him open up the tin of Quality Streets and picking out all his favourite flavoured chocolates, not being there to have…

Today I was going on a very special journey to London Paddington. I hadn’t been to London since 2020 so I was especially nervous about getting back out into the bigger world. Over the past couple of months, I have still been struggling with my mental health and this was going to be a significant…

Today I was meeting up with someone who provides absolutely brilliant support to people in the Railway Family and has been a true inspiration, personally, for me. He is part of the reason for relaunching my fundraising challenge of travelling all of Britain’s railway lines, as I could see how much the charity he works…

Today, I was going on a slightly different trip to my usual journeys. Following on from my last blog (One Big Step) where I was talking a lot about the things that were preventing me from travelling, I wanted to take the next logical step. This was to still stay close to home but go…

Today I went on my first train journey in nine months, which has felt like an incredibly long time. It was only a two mile journey which lasted all of five minutes but it was a huge step for me. Let me explain why. I went on my last train journey in November 2021, which…

Today, I was going on a mammoth of a train journey all thanks to Avanti West Coast. I reached out to Avanti a few months ago, to ask them if they could provide me with any support with my challenge of travelling all of Britain’s railway lines. I got a response within a matter of…

Today to aid me with my challenge of travelling all of Britain’s railway lines, I continued with ticking off some more of the TfW Valley Lines. If you haven’t read my previous blog about my trip to tick off the Ebbw Vale and Maesteg lines I took two weeks earlier, then here’s the link to…

Since the start of 2020, I have not been able to tick off any new route due to Coronavirus lockdowns and not feeling ready to travel on the trains. This changed today! For the first time this year, I was able to cross off the first bit of new route which was two of the…

Today was the day I had been looking forward to for months! Last December I received a message from Abi at Aquarius Rail telling me that they wanted to name one of their Road to Rail vehicles after me! I was so excited when I read the message, I remember I was in the car…

Over the past 6 months or so the UK has been in lockdown (on and off). This has meant I haven’t been on a train since October when I did an Oxfordshire Day Ranger and travelled quite extensively around the area. I have really missed travelling and it is looking more and more likely that…

At the moment the UK is in a lockdown which means I can’t travel which I am finding really difficult as it is one of the only things I enjoy. So, while I cannot travel, I thought I would plan journeys to do in the future and share my planning process with you. I was…

I would first like to say that all my thoughts are with those affected by the Stonehaven Derailment and for that reason I would like to dedicate my blog to Brett McCullough, Donald Dinnie, Christopher Stuchbury, ScotRail and all those affected by the incident. For those of you who haven’t followed my travels before, I…

GWR ran a livery competition to design a train livery for a Class 802 to celebrate the key workers. Today I saw a Tweet and it said, along with two others, I had won the GWR livery competition. I was invited to go and see the train in Stoke Gifford depot, in Bristol. GWR kindly…

Today I woke up very early at 05:15 to catch the 06:15 Cross Country Service to Newport, as today was a day where I was going to tick off some more route on the railway network. Transport for Wales very kindly sent me over some complimentary tickets to Milford Haven. We arrived in Gloucester Station…

On Friday 31st January my dad and I went on a special trip I was given for Christmas. My mum took us to the station and I started to feel a bit anxious about the journey. I had been really looking forward to it since Christmas but now it felt very scary and I thought…

Today I woke up to go on my first ever trip to Carmarthen. I woke up at 08:00am to catch the 09:44 service from Cam & Dursley to Bristol Parkway. Our train was formed of two three car class 166’s 166208 & 166xxx We arrived at Bristol Parkway to find an almost empty, cold and…