"AstraVanMan" wrote:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
[1] For example, has anyone taken a one-week British Rail Rover ticket
and
attempted to cover that entire network?

A week? Surely it'd take *much* longer than that? Probably closer to at
least a month or two, possibly a fair bit longer, I'd have thought. There
are a *lot* of little branch lines, served by much more infrequent and
slower trains than on the main lines.

My initial instinct was to say Roland Perry was nearer the mark with seven
days, but then I thought of Scotland alone, with:

i) Lots of long, slow secondary routes (Kyle, Far North, Mallaig etc)
ii) Lots of doubling back (eg Stranraer, unless buses are permitted, but
they would be slow in any event).
iii) A dense urban network in Glasgow

I think Kyle and the Far North alone would fill a day (or more), and
Mallaig/Oban would be another full day. Glasgow urban routes would fill a
day, as would the suburban bits around Edinburgh (North Berwick, Bathgate,
up to Dundee etc). That still leaves an awful lot of Scotland, but I think
Scotland could be covered comfortably in seven days- albeit with little time
for sightseeing!

England is a mixed bag, because whilst there are long, slow branch lines,
there are also plenty of high speed main lines, and a generally more
frequent level of service. I'd say three weeks for England, and maybe four
days for Wales.

So added together, it does look like a month or so - and that's assuming the
person undertaking the trip had the energy to cope with 5am starts and
midnight finishes for a month.

I've done 7 day Rail Rovers in the past, and have ticked off most of the
'InterCity' routes, but made relatively little impression on the branches.
And by the end of each week I was totally fatigued - travelling being
somewhat draining even when you just sit in First Class for a few hours
being fed tea and cake.

Chris