Mineycart

On Tuesday 18th June I was extremely lucky to be able to go on another railway trip so soon after the last one. This was thanks to a very generous donation I'd recieved on my new Kofi page by German Harry Potter speedrunner Nixxo. On this day I was able to visit a further number of new stations including Wolverhampton, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham Moor Street, Tile Hill, Coseley, Rowley Regis, Old Hill and Longbridge bringing the total up to 24.

Next to July and the 11th which is PAY DAYYYY. Anyways I took a brief afternoon trip to a few stations near central Birmingham including Stechford, The Hawthorns, Langley Green and Smethwick Rolfe Street. Then just two days later on Saturday 13th July I went on another full day journey visiting many stations. These were Selly Oak, Bournville, Kings Norton, Northfield, Sutton Coldfield, Wylde Green, Chester Road, Erdington, Wythall, Whitlocks End, Bordesley, Small Heath, Shirley, Hall Green, Stourbridge Junction, Stourbridge Town, Gravelly Hill, Duddeston and Aston. This brought our total up to 47. But I was far from done for train trips in July!

Just 3 days later on Tuesday 16th July I took ANOTHER full day trip on the railways and this was a special day because I managed to reach 50 stations visting Solihull, Widney Manor before reaching station #50 at Acocks Green. This station held a strange place in my heart as I used to walk the long distance from where I used to live back in late 2021 to this station on days where I needed to get out of the house. These were honestly quite dark times for me looking back and I don't think I realised how low I was during those times until my visit to Acocks Green that day. The visit brought the memories flooding back and with it a lot of heavy emotions. I was very happy therefore to continue on my journey for that day continuing to visit Olton, Earlswood, Spring Road, Yardley Wood, Tipton, Dudley Port, Cradley Heath, Lye, Tame Bridge Parkway, Bescot Stadium, Witton, Hamstead, Perry Barr, Blake Street, Four Oaks and Butlers Lane bringing my station count up to 66 stations meaning I had visited 19 new stations in that one day!

Going on Holiday

In early August I had booked train tickets to go and see Orsokuma (the person who actually owns the servers this site is run on - thanks bear!) as I had done twice before. Usually I would take the most direct route for this journey with as few changes as possible but with my new challenge I knew this would be a perfect opportunity to tick off some new stations that might be slightly harder to access normally. Using this strategy I was able to tick off Stockport, Manchester Oxford Road and Bolton on my way to visiting Bear. On Friday 9th August myself and Bear took a trip to Liverpool to visit a mutual friend of ours. To get there we ended up passing through Wigan thus allowing me to tick off Wigan North Western, Wigan Wallgate as well as Liverpool Lime Street off my list of stations to visit.

The very next day I took a trip on my own to explore the railways around Manchester. This time using a Rail Rover on the Bee Network costing me £8.80. In this day I managed to visit 8 new stations, these being Manchester Piccadilly, Navigation Road, Salford Crescent, Salford Central, Manchester Victoria, Cheadle Hulme, Manchester Airport and Deansgate. This brought my total up to 80 stations. Finally on the way home I ticked off Crewe station again having brought a ticket with more changes to be able to change there. Sadly due to delays I only had a few minuites there so just about had enough time to grab a picture, I 100% want to and need to go back to be able to explore the station properly as it's a beautiful station that sees so much traffic. It would be a wonderful place to do some train spotting.

The Road to 100!

After having spent around £50-£60 on train tickets + food and supplies for the days out in August I did not expect to be going on another day trip in August ... well I ended up being wrong about that as an opportunity presented itself and I was able to go on another trip. On this day I managed to tick off 9 more stations, 1 less than the planned 10 because I was an idiot and misread my departure time from Kidderminster on my plan as 14:47 and not 14:37 thus causing me to miss the trains I was supposed to be catching. However things probably worked out in my favour as some trains around the ones I ended up travelling on were canceled and although I don't know for certain it was trains I would have travelled on I have a strong suspicion it would have been. Anyways on this day I managed to visit 9 stations like I said, those were Lichfield Trent Valley, Lichfield City, Shenstone, Kidderminster, Hagley, Blakedown, Canley, Hampton-In-Arden and Berkswell. The missed train did turn out to be a confirmed blessing in disguise however because I was able to successfully visit the latter 3 stations which were the only 3 stations on the Coventry to Wolverhampton line I hadn't ticked off.

Exactly one week later I was able to visit the railway again thanks to another kind tip from a friend. Using the money they gave me I was able to get a daytripper ticket and some food for an afternoon journey of fun. On this day I visited just two new stations those being Bloxwich and Bloxwich North, both stations were simply designed but in all honesty had a nice feeling to them with lots of green around them despite being in a built up urban area. This brought my total station count to 92 but this posed a problem. The only station left within the standard West Midlands Day Tripper zone was Coventry Arena (a small modern station for the so named Coventry Arena in ... well Coventry). Therefore I would need to go further afield to reach 100 stations! So I did just that.

On Saturday 14th September I woke up extremely early at 6am having only gotten around 4 hours of sleep to begin my journey to the 100th station, a journey that due to the infrequent service of the line I had chosen would take a good majority of the day. The line I chose was the line between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury so after an early morning trip to McDonalds in Wolverhampton Town Centre I began my journey up the line ticking off Bilbrook, Codsall, Albrighton, Cosford, Shifnal, Oakengates, Wellington before finally arriving into Shrewsbury at around 15:30 on Transport for Wales Class 158823. And that was it, I'd done it, 100 stations! Even typing this now it's crazy to me to think that in a few short weeks I've managed to reach 100 stations and apparently according to my calculations 4% of the overall total which is insane! There's still a long way to go though as there's some 2000 stations in the UK but ticking off the first 100 just feels ... like a huge achievement in itself. On to the next 100!

Finally to finish off this month's trips I travelled back home ticking off Telford Central on the way and then on Monday 16th September on the way home from visiting family I ticked off Coventry Arena, the final station within the standard West Midlands DayTripper area. If I want to continue further I will now need to be looking at the extensions as well as other rovers up north when I go to visit friends.