Guest blog: Discover rail-accessible walks with Trains2Green
In this guest blog, Nicolas Holzapfel shares how his passion for tracks-to-trails hiking led him to create Trains2Green, a web app aiming to support more people to discover and plan amazing walks accessible by rail across Britain.
By Nicolas Holzapfel, Trains2Green founder
London is surrounded by beautiful countryside. This includes two national parks, seven national landscapes, and umpteen unaccredited charming places – and the dense rail network makes these places very easy to visit, even for the 47% of London households with no car.
And yet, I’m confident that for most of us, the concept of a day trip to this vast green hinterland is a kind of pleasing abstraction, often considered but never acted upon. Somehow it seems too daunting – not the kind of thing you slip out of bed and casually fill a post-work Saturday with.
For me, when the years of living in the capital eventually did produce a viable itch to explore my geographic vicinity, my solution was to stare at Google Maps, find a promisingly green splodge with a railway station, drag my partner, Alice, along to said green splodge and arrive bright and early for a day’s exploration. Alas, it turned out that green splodges outside London are not like the green splodges inside London, and required boring things like planning and rights of way. We spent the day trudging along busy roads looking for footpaths (sorry, Alice) and deeply regretting my choice of green splodge (sorry, Barton Hills).
The initial idea for Trains2Green.com was forming!
Early in the process, I bought a book entitled ‘The Rough Guide to Walks in London and the South East’. This confirmed that there was indeed a world outside London that didn’t require a car or elaborate planning and was extremely beautiful and varied. Balancing city life with the discovery of a new and unfamiliar vista of blasted hills, medieval villages, ancient holloways, and secluded woodland became essential to my project.
As I ticked off walk after walk in the table of contents, I started thinking about my explorations after completing the ‘Rough Guide’. There were other books, but they heavily overlapped, and I was eager to explore a digital-first approach to rambling. I wanted an app where I could pleasantly browse, plan and see the scope of the rail network and the land it overlays. I wanted to literally connect the dots and grasp it all as a whole – to understand the Wealdyness of the High Weald (Anglo-Saxon for ‘weird’ by the way), and whether I prefer Berkshire to Hertfordshire (I do – rural beauty is inequitable like that).
And so, Trains2Green was born.
Finding a day hike in the countryside that is just a train journey away is simple. On the map, you can filter by journey time from London and walk gradient and length, as well as key features you’d like your walk to include, such as woodland, hills, waterways and coasts.
The map key easily breaks down the walks into four categories:
- Starter: A classic walking spot that includes a gentle and easy-to-navigate walk for the rookie rambler
- Renowned: Among the best stations for walking and a favourite amongst ramblers
- Trodden: A station with good, documented walks in the area
- Uncharted: Walk information not yet found for this area (but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to discover…)
I hope that Trains2Green similarly encourages you to hop on a train, get out of the busy city and into the muddy grass-touching glory of the British countryside.
Get inspired for your next Days Out by Rail walking adventure with Trains2Green.com.
Send any comments or questions to nicolas@niczap.design.
Looking for more inspiration for stepping off a train and into adventure? Visit our Tracks and Trails page.
