The first time I looked at joining a 20s-30s Ramblers group, I was at university in Liverpool. When I looked into it, if you didn’t have a car, most of the local group’s walks involved booking a space on a minibus well in advance. As an inexperienced and fair weather walker (ed: what’s changed, exactly?) I didn’t want to commit to a long walk in advance of knowing what the weather would be doing. Frankly, I was also a student, and planning ahead to that degree didn’t really work for me in general!
I graduated, found a job in Reading, and found the Berkshire Walkers. Suddenly, I could just turn up to any walk I wanted.
A big reason for the difference is Reading’s position as a railway junction, with lots of nearby stations that are close to the countryside. In an hour (or so) by train from Reading we can hit places as diverse as Bath, the Cotswolds, the New Forest and the Surrey Hills – not to mention more local rail destinations like Goring, Pangbourne, Aldermaston or Bramley. We can run a varied walks programme that is highly flexible to new members, especially those without access to a car. It’s also more sociable – easier to have a drink at the end of the walk without worrying about the drive home – and better for the environment!
For all these reasons, I think walking and railways are a natural mix. I have recently started working with Railwalks, a new project attempting to build a national network of walks from and between railway stations. It has grown out of Slow Ways, itself a project to create a national walking network. So far, the project has collected a series of links to websites offering walks from railway stations in different parts of the country, and volunteers (including me) have started submitting their own routes. I hope this will become an invaluable resource for walk planning, encouraging others to experience the benefits of rail walks for themselves.
How can you help?
- Sign up to the Railwalks mailing list.
- Spread the word! (by sharing this blog post?)
- (Perhaps most importantly) contribute routes! You need to submit a .gpx file and a brief description. Routes should follow the criteria here and should not duplicate walks that are on Slow Ways, or other sites (e.g. Saturday Walkers Club) – Railwalks offers links to these sites instead.