Two hundred years in the past the primary ticket-holding passengers boarded carriages and eagerly awaited as a steam locomotive slowly pulled away alongside iron tracks. Off they set on the primary 26-mile journey in 1825 from Darlington to Stockton. It was the beginning fashionable railway and likelihood is that epic first journey was fairly gradual. Now creator and practice knowledgeable Tom Chesshyre has revealed his favorite gradual rides throughout the UK in a brand new guide, Slow Trains Around Britain.
As a journey journalist and creator of greater than 13 books, Tom Chesshyre has spent a lot of his profession travelling by rail.
He stated: “We, the British, invented the trains. It was a proud moment. I’ve been interested in railways for some time. It’s a slower way to travel. You see places off the beaten track out of the train window. But it was the anniversary that really inspired it.
“There’s a type of nostalgia for the golden age of trains, when there was a type of Agatha Christie really feel: plush velvet seats (they have been usually within the top notch) waiters with bow ties and a mystique. This was the glamorous means of getting about, and I believe at the back of individuals’s minds, there is a perception that there is a type of romance linked to coach journey.”
Tom revealed to the BBC his five favourite slow journeys across Britain for rail ethusiasts to try for themselves in 2026.
Inverness to Thurso on ScotRail
Tom said: “Inverness is in the course of Scotland, after which I went all the way in which as much as essentially the most northerly station in the entire of the UK, Thurso. You undergo this type of moorland, virtually like a type of desolate panorama. It’s actually awe-inspiring and so quiet. You really feel such as you’re taking a practice and disappearing from fashionable life, leaving it behind. It’s not an costly ticket both; it is a common practice. You find yourself on this little city overlooking the Atlantic Ocean up there, and it is only a feeling of escape. (
St Ives Bay Line
Tom stated: “The most picturesque of all was probably just the short journey from St Erth in Cornwall to St Ives, which is a kind of an old fishing village that all these artists went to live in. You go along this clifftop with a beach down below and all the waves crashing on the shore. You must sit on the right going in and on the left going out if you want to get the perfect view.”
Craven Arms to Llanelli on Transport for Wales
Tom stated: “Going through the middle of Wales, you start in a place called Craven Arms and go as far as Llanelli. This journey took about three hours, but it was on a Saturday evening, and people had brought their beer or wine and their snacks. I kind of sat, and I watched as people began singing Welsh songs, a real singalong! It wasn’t like people were getting drunk; it was just kind of jolly. It was only one carriage for this train, so there was a small little party going on as the darkness fell, with the green hills around us on a very remote line. It was a very happy experience.”
New Romney to Dungeness on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway
Tom stated: “There are lots of these heritage lines; they’re kind of like the old steam trains. You have 170 of them in Britain which is unbelievable, covering around 600 miles. These are special little lines that might only just be open at the weekend. This one is tiny, and they have what are called ‘narrow gauges’. So it’s not the big, wide train, like a normal train. It’s narrow … a 1-ft or 2-ft-wide track. It was created by an eccentric aristocrat who had a lot of money and decided to build a little toy train just for himself. It was like a little baby train.”
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Tom stated: “Rail enthusiasts reopened this route in the 1970s. You can go along this little train track with all these old steam trains through beautiful moorlands, very remote. Lovely bracken and gorse on the hillside, and you see the steam trailing past the carriage windows. I was allowed to go in where they put the coal in, you know, and actually see the furnace at the front. At least 30,000 people volunteer to help these old steam trains. They’re not for profit, most of these things. It shows that 200 years on, there is still a lot of respect and pride in Britain for the fact that trains were invented here. That was quite touching to see.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2145127/im-train-expert-these