In the beginning!

Hi, I'm Charlotte and welcome to the official Girl on Rails Blog!

Where to start? Well, other than the fact that lockdown has me bored to the point that I'm writing a blog? 

I thought I'd do an a quick post about me!

I'm in my early 20s, and a final year Biochemistry student at the University of Nottingham, albeit I'm at home in Sussex currently due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I've been interested in trains for as long as I can remember. I'm also a fan of Musical Theatre, and particularly modern shows; my favourites at the moment are Six and & Juliet.

My interest was spiked even more in 2017, during All the Stations, when I realised that going to all 2563 (as it was then) stations was something that people did. I followed All the Stations to the point that I was a kickstarter backer for the Ireland edition and have done a lot of their quizzes during the current pandemic.

And it was in the spring/summer of 2019, when I was coming to the end of my second year at Uni, when I met Geoff and Vicki from All the stations, at a book signing they held at the National Railway Museum in York. It was a long day (12 hours!) and it was on the train back from York to Sheffield that I decided to start Girl on Rails, and I started to take photos of stations from Sheffield. A twitter and instagram account followed, as did a facebook page, although I'm most likely to be found on twitter, and I did a few day trips over that summer to start ticking off stations.

So what are the rules for the challenge?

I have to stop at every station in Britain. I'm not getting off the train at each station because of time constraints on my journeys, but I can't be on an express train. If a station is a request stop, as long as the train I'm on can stop, it counts, although I will try to stop at as many of these as I can and get off the train.

I've counted all the stations that I know I've used before the challenge, such as those I've visited with my family.

I'll be blogging about my previous trips and my planned future trips for now, and then taking you along for the ride when we can get back out on the trains!