Pick a line on the map, ride it until it stops, and see what is there. That is the entire method.

I started doing this after the walk that brought me here, when I noticed that the most interesting place on any railway is the place the timetable treats as an afterthought. Terminus towns have a particular mood. Everyone who is there either meant to be, or has fallen asleep.

A lake surrounded by trees at sunset
The end of a branch line in June. The last train back was at 18:05, and I very nearly let it go.

How to do it

  1. Choose a line you have never finished.
  2. Buy a return, in second class, on a weekday.
  3. Bring no guidebook. Ask the first person who looks local where they would eat.
  4. Be back on the platform ten minutes early. These trains do not wait.

Some things I have found

  • A harbour with one boat and three cats.
  • A museum of local knitting, open by request.
  • The best fish soup of my life, in a former waiting room.
  • A bus shelter with a shelf of paperbacks, swapped by nobody knows who.

Nothing on these trips has ever been worth the fare on paper. All of them were worth it.

The point is not really the place. It is getting to the end of something and turning round, which you are not often allowed to do in an ordinary week.

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