UK Coastal Walk to Start from Shoeburyness on May 7th – Anyone Can Join!

Press Release

Railwalks.co.uk has mapped the coast of Britain, revealing hundreds of spectacular coastal walks available between railway stations.  On May 7th, starting from Shoeburyness station at 10am, some Railwalks supporters will be starting a 600-mile walk around eight stretches of the coast, which are well-served by rail, as described on our website.  The walk is one of many events commemorating the 200th anniversary of the railways this year.  Day One will be a flat and gentle 6-mile walk from Shoeburyness to Southend Central.  Everyone is invited to join – just turn up outside Shoeburyness station for a 10am start.



Railwalks.co.uk was set up by a group of walkers last year, to encourage walking from and between railway stations.  Following this article in The Guardian, they now have 3,000 supporters across the country.  One of their founder members, Andy Stevenson, designed the coastal maps which gave them the idea to walk the coast this summer.

Another founder member, Steve Melia, will be walking all 600 miles, taking the train between each region.  Other Railwalks supporters, including his wife Sara, will be joining the walk at different points.  Each day’s walk will start and finish at a railway station, making it easy for people to join and leave at a point of their choosing.  The walk will finish in July, in Yorkshire.

Steve and Sara Melia, who now live in Bristol, first met in Essex 38 years ago.  Steve briefly lived in Leigh-on-Sea in the 1980s.  He said:

“Railways are really useful for walking the coast, because you can keep going in the same direction.  You don’t have to circle back to a car park.  This long walk is made up of 61 short walks, which local people can do anytime.  The distances between the stations vary from 3 miles to 18 miles, so depending on your fitness, any of them may be walkable within a day.  On the second day I will be walking seven miles from Southend to Benfleet, for example, but if you wanted a shorter walk, you could bail out at Chalkwell or Leigh-on-Sea. 

Obvious, this area is mainly urbanised, but later on, I will be walking some wilder places, in Mid-Wales and North Yorkshire, in particular.  Whilst I was planning this trip, I discovered another advantage to walking by rail.  In many small places, there is no accommodation, unless you carry a tent, and wild camping is illegal in most of Britain.  But if you are starting and finishing at stations, you can stay in one place for several nights, taking the train out in the morning and back in the afternoon.  I will be doing a lot of that.

We hope this walk will encourage more people to join our supporters list, on www.railwalks.co.uk, and start exploring our beautiful country by train.”

The Coastal Railtrail is sponsored by Trainsplit.com, who will be providing Steve’s train travel and T-shirts for the Railwalks supporters.

ENDS

Photo Opportunity: 9.40 am outside Shoeburyness Station


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My favourite walking station… Chesham

Image
In the first of a series where people nominate their favourite train station for walking, Railwalks Steering Committee member Kieran Seale nominates Chesham, Buckinghamshire.   Chesham sits at the end of the Metropolitan line on London Underground.  With direct trains from stations such as Kings Cross and Liverpool Street, it is nevertheless the perfect place from which to start a country walk. Most importantly, of course, there are a lot of wonderful walks to do.  Chesham is at the heart of the Chilterns whose beautiful rolling hills are a walker's paradise.  You can be in open fields spotting red kites within minutes of getting off the train. Chesham is the start of the Chess Valley walking route which takes you along the beautiful chalk stream back towards London via other Metropolitan line stations like Chorleywood and Rickmansworth.  From Chesham you can walk to a variety of other stations too, including Amersham on the Metropolitan line, Great Missenden an...
Read more

My favourite walking stations - Pewsey and Bedwyn

Image
  Kieran Seale spoke to Susie Brew of the Pewsey Vale Tourism Partnership about why Pewsey and Bedwyn are great stations to walk from.   Both Pewsey and Bedwyn stations are on the Reading to Taunton section of the Great Western main line between Paddington and the south west.   It takes roughly an hour to get to either station from Paddington, although getting to Bedwyn station may require changing at Newbury.     The two stations are at either end of the Pewsey Vale.   The Pewsey Vale Tourism Partnership is a member of the Walkers are Welcome scheme and their website gives details of five walks from Pewsey station and eleven walks from Bedwyn.   Each of the walks has a map as well as route descriptions and are available free of charge. Pewsey and Great Bedwyn are linked by the Kennet and Avon Canal, about 10 miles from each other - so going between the two stations would be an easy walking option. The village of Pewsey is a great place to ...
Read more