All the Stations
All the Stations is a documentary series published on YouTube, which sees couple Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe visit all 2,563 stations on Great Britain's National Rail railway network,[4][5][6] and all 198 stations on the railway network of Iarnród Éireann in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland Railways in Northern Ireland. The Great Britain journey took fourteen weeks and six days, starting at Penzance station on 7 May 2017 and finishing at Wick station on 19 August.[7][8]
| All the Stations | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Video blog Online documentary |
| Created by | Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe |
| Presented by | Geoff Marshall, Vicki Pipe |
| Theme music composer | Steven Francis |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom, Ireland, Isle of Man |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 79 (excluding bonus episodes) + 1 (long-form documentary) |
| Production | |
| Cinematography | Geoff Marshall, Martin Clitheroe (Drone footage)[1] |
| Editor(s) | Dan Haythorn, Will Head, Geoff Marshall, Michelle Martin (Ireland only)[1] |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Budget | £38,654[2] (Season 1) £26,350[3] (Season 2) |
| Release | |
| Original network | YouTube |
| Picture format | HDTV 1080p |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 10 May 2017 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Overview
All the Stations was crowdfunded via Kickstarter, raising a total of £38,654 in 40 days (from 15 February to 27 March 2017) for the Great Britain season in 2017,[2] and £26,350 for the Ireland season in 2019.[3] Every contributor who donated £10 or more to the Kickstarter campaign was able to adopt a station,[9] and their name appeared on the map on the project's website.
For traveling in Great Britain, Marshall and Pipe used All Line Rover tickets. The money raised from the crowdfunding allowed four main documentary episodes to be published each week on YouTube – there were 59 episodes in total – and also paid for 11 'bonus' episodes. Marshall also hosted further content on his channel, and there was one longer video episode paid for by sponsorship from The Trainline.
All videos are hosted on YouTube. An 80-minute documentary, which has additional content along with interviews, was released on 19 May 2018.[10]
All The Stations – Ireland
'All The Stations – Ireland', a project to visit all 198 stations on the island of Ireland, launched its Kickstarter on 6 January 2019 at 6pm; and raised the required £14,500 for this project to go ahead in just 54 minutes.[3] The project got under way on 25 March 2019, starting at Rosslare Europort railway station, and was estimated to take approximately two weeks.[11] The final station, Londonderry, was visited on 10 April 2019.[12]
An additional £11,850 was raised, bringing the total up to £26,350 and allowing for an additional five videos to be produced.[3] This included bonus videos of the couple travelling to Ireland and another about the Luas Tram network in Dublin.
All The Stations – Isle of Man
'All The Stations – Isle of Man' was a bonus project to visit all the stations on the Isle of Man. The project was funded from the funds raised as part of 'All The Stations – Ireland'. The project took three days, between 12 July 2019 and 14 July 2019, and covered the Isle of Man Railway on the first day, the Manx Electric Railway and Snaefell Mountain Railway on the second day, and then the Great Laxey Mine Railway and Groudle Glen Railway on the third day. They were unable to ride the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway due to resurfacing works on the seafront promenade.
The precise number of stations visited as part of 'All The Stations – Isle of Man' is uncertain due to the large number of unmarked halts on the Manx Electric Railway; it is probably between 87 and 90.
Method
The rules set out before the trip were that all 2,563 stations on the National Rail network in Great Britain were to be visited (i.e. every station which appears on the Office of Rail and Road's website).[2][note 1]
To visit a station, they had to be on a train that stopped at the station, but they did not have to alight from the train. In the case of request stops, the train had to be scheduled to stop if required; for a number of request stops, they used other transport to get to the station and then requested the train to stop (hence the title of the first episode "Make Your Intent Clear", referring to the instructions given to passengers using request stops).
It was estimated that if they had been required to get off the train at every station, the journey would have taken almost a year to complete.[13]
Stations opened subsequently
After completing all 2,563 stations, Kenilworth station was scheduled to open on 10 December 2017, on which day Marshall and Pipe visited the station, although it did not actually open until April 2018. Corfe Castle and Maghull North later became stations numbers 2,565 and 2,566. The pair visited Corfe in August 2018,[14] and Kenilworth and Maghull on 21 December 2018.[15] Originally planned to open on 20 May 2019, Meridian Water opened on 3 June 2019, replacing the nearby Angel Road which had closed on 31 May.[16] Marshall and Pipe visited Meridian Water on the day it opened, catching the first train to call at the station.[17]
In July 2019 Great Western started operating a Saturday only service from Taunton to Bishops Lydeard on the West Somerset Railway for a limited period of time.[18] Marshall and Pipe visited the station on 3 August,[19] the only day that trains were also scheduled to stop at Norton Fitzwarren.[18]
In June 2020, the pair's Twitter account confirmed which since-opened stations they have yet to visit: Warrington West, Robroyston, Worcestershire Parkway, and Horden.[20]
Book
A book about the project, The Railway Adventures, authored by Marshall and Pipe, was released on 16 October 2018 by September Publishing.[21]
Episode list
This list of station visits and corresponding episodes has been compiled from the map on the All the Stations website.[22]
Great Britain
Ireland
Isle of Man
| Day No. | Date | Episode | Railway station(s) visited | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | No. | List | No. | ||
| 1 | Friday 12 July 2019 | To The Isle of Man! | 1 | Douglas, Port Soderick, Santon, Ballasalla, Ronaldsway Halt, Castletown, Ballabeg, Colby, The Level, Port St Mary, Port Erin | 11 |
| 2 | Saturday 13 July 2019 | The Manx Electric Railway | 2 | Derby Castle, Groudle Glen, Baldrine, Ballabeg, South Cape, Laxey, Bungalow, Snaefell Summit, Minorca, Dhoon Glen Halt, Dhoon, Glen Mona, Ballaglass Glen Halt, Cornaa, Ballajora Halt, Lewaigue, Ramsey and numerous minor halts | 71 or 72[note 3] |
| 3 | Sunday 14 July 2019 | Groudle Glen / Laxey Mine Railways | 3 | Valley Gardens, Mines Yard, Lhen Coan, Lime Kiln Halt, Sea Lion Rocks | 5 |
Notes
- See this spreadsheet.
- Episode 1 concludes on the platform at Rosslare Europort, but no train is boarded.
- As the Manx Electric Railway has several unmarked minor halts, the number of stations is unclear. Marshall suggests 69 or 70 (in addition to 2 stations on the Snaefell Mountain Railway).
References
- "The Team". All The Stations. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- "All the Stations". Kickstarter. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
- "All The Stations - Ireland". Kickstarter. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
- Beanland, Christopher (12 June 2017). "2,563 stations in 14 weeks: meet the couple visiting every railway station in Britain". the Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- "'All the Stations' challenge calls at the West Country's least-used station". ITV News. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- "The couple visiting every train station in Britain". CNN Travel. 26 June 2017. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- Sanderson, Daniel (19 August 2017). "End of the line for whistle-stop tour couple Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- "Meet Geoff and Vicki: The 'gorpcore' couple visiting every train station in Britain". The Telegraph. 12 August 2017. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- "All the Stations". Kickstarter.
- "About". All the Stations. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
- "All The Stations Ireland - It begins!". All the Stations. Twitter. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
- "198 Stations … complete! pic.twitter.com/G1hxvXmHjO". @allthestations. Twitter. 10 April 2019. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
- Haines, Gavin (9 June 2017). "12 things we've learned trying to visit all 2,563 British railway stations". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
- "Station 2,565 - Corfe Castle". All the Stations. YouTube. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
- "Maghull North to Kenilworth - 2,566 Complete!". All the Stations. YouTube.
- "Angel Road rail station closure: May 2019". GOV.UK.
- Meridian Water Station Opens, retrieved 2 August 2019
- "New Somerset train services start on July 27 GWR Shuttles to West Somerset Railway details announced". West Somerset Railway. 8 July 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
- @allthestations (3 August 2019). "Bishops Lydeard! ✅ Station 2,567" (Tweet). Retrieved 5 August 2019 – via Twitter.
- "Here's our updated 'count' list since 2017 ..." All the Stations. Twitter. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
- "The Railway Adventures: Places, Trains, People and Stations - September Publishing". September Publishing. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
- "The Map". allthestations.co.uk. All The Stations. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
External links
- All the Stations YouTube channel
- List of all the main and bonus videos on the All the Stations website