Historic 600-Mile Coastal Rail Walk Set to Conclude in Bridlington

A remarkable 600-mile walking journey around the British coastline is set to culminate in Bridlington today.

The ambitious endeavour is one of many events taking place this year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the railways.

Steve Melia, a founder member of Railwalks.co.uk, has been the primary walker for this extensive journey, covering eight stretches of the British coastline that are particularly well-served by rail.

Steve says his daily walks have consistently started and finished at a railway station, a core principle of Railwalks.co.uk, which aims to encourage and facilitate rural walking using the rail network.

"We set up Rail Walks with the aim of trying to make it easier to use the rail network to go walking, for pleasure.

We decided to map the whole of the coast of Britain, showing where all the railway stations are and the distances between them on the coast path

In each region we look for where the stations are close enough together that you can walk between them in a day.

And so we chose eight of those, one for each region the eighth and the final one for Yorkshire goes from Scarborough to Bridlington in three days. So that's three walks of a about 10 miles each."

The final leg of this monumental walk began on Monday, July 21st, in Scarborough and will conclude its three-day stretch in Bridlington on Wednesday. This particular section, the eighth and final one chosen for the Yorkshire region, comprises three walks of approximately 10 miles each, making them manageable for local enthusiasts.

Steve Melia expressed his admiration for this concluding part of the journey, stating, “Fortunately, that stretch between Scarborough and Bridlington is one of the most beautiful”. He recently walked from Scarborough to Filey, describing it as "even better than I remembered".

The convenience of integrating rail travel with walking has been a recurring theme throughout the journey. Steve Melia highlighted a key advantage saying “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”. 

"The trains are particularly useful for walking the coast path, because if you imagine trying to do it by driving, where are you gonna park your car and how are you gonna go back there?

So it, it actually makes a lot more sense to use the train.

It's quicker, it's more convenient, particularly if you live near one of the stations,  and aren't there some fantastic walks along this coast?

So what we'd really like to encourage people to do is try some of those walks."

Railwalks.co.uk was established last year by a group of walkers. They undertook the unprecedented task of mapping the entire British coast, identifying 250 coastal railway stations and the distances between them along the coast path. According to Steve Melia, "Surprisingly, no one had ever done that before". This mapping exercise, spearheaded by founder member Andy Stevenson, provided the inspiration for this summer's coastal walk.

The 600-mile walk, which has been timed to be part of the celebrations of the railways 200th anniversary, will end in Bridlington where Steve says he hopes to be joined by a number of local Rail Walks supporters 

"I'm hopeful that our supporters who live here in Yorkshire will join me, for that last bit.

I started on May the seventh. It's taken me two and a half months. There were 60 days of walking. It will be a total of 600 miles.

There's a lot of things going on around the country to celebrate the 200th anniversary and this is one of them and we've been through, where I've just been along the north east coast, we've seen parts of the old Stockton to Darlington railway.

So yeah, that, that's been a good thing."

Despite common public perception, Steve Melia also offered an insight into the reliability of the rail network based on his extensive travel during the walk. Out of over 70 journeys, he experienced only a few minor disruptions, stating, "nothing which has happened on the rail network at any point on my trip has made the slightest difference to my ability to carry on doing the walk".

Railwalks.co.uk hopes that this walk will inspire more people to join their 3,000 supporters and explore Britain by train. The organisation provides online resources, including coastal pages showing station locations and distances, along with downloadable GPX files for mapping apps. Steve says he plans to share further insights, including "eight best walks on the rail trail" and "10 things I learned from the rail trail," on their blog.

"On our website, we've got , these coastal pages that show you where all the the stations are and the distance between them.

And also links to GPX files, which you can download if you want to use any of these sort of mapping apps and also when it's over, I intend to write a sort of eight best walks on the rail trail. So I'll choose one from each region. And then I'm gonna write a sort of 10 things I learned from the rail trail and I've got quite a few ideas for that."

The Coastal Railtrail has been sponsored by trainsplit.com, who have covered Steve Melia’s train travel and provided T-shirts for Railwalks supporters.