Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
In practice you would have to walk to the nearest road/place with phone if no signal and call a taxi at your expense.
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Missing the last train from Berney Arms
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90sWereBetter
Member
"Recently" (as in at least over a year ago 
), there seems to have been improvements made to the path leading from the platform to the barrow crossing, in that it's been properly defined, and basic fencing put up between the track and the path. I wonder if anything will be done to the abandoned half of the platform.
When I made my first trip to the station itself almost exactly a year ago (I had travelled past it several times before), the conductor was most pleased that he had a Berney Arms passenger when he checked tickets out of Norwich that Sunday afternoon, and we had a decent conversation once his train picked me up from Berney Arms half an hour later (I stayed in the vicinity of the station and barrow crossing, it was much too windy and cold to walk to the pub that day).
There was a very surprised lady on board as well. It was the first time she'd seen someone get on at Berney Arms in many years.
), there seems to have been improvements made to the path leading from the platform to the barrow crossing, in that it's been properly defined, and basic fencing put up between the track and the path. I wonder if anything will be done to the abandoned half of the platform. When I made my first trip to the station itself almost exactly a year ago (I had travelled past it several times before), the conductor was most pleased that he had a Berney Arms passenger when he checked tickets out of Norwich that Sunday afternoon, and we had a decent conversation once his train picked me up from Berney Arms half an hour later (I stayed in the vicinity of the station and barrow crossing, it was much too windy and cold to walk to the pub that day).
There was a very surprised lady on board as well. It was the first time she'd seen someone get on at Berney Arms in many years.
Not quite as simple as you might expect. Unless things have changed recently there is no road to Berney Arms. To get there you have to travel across a succession of fields opening and closing gates as you go. There are no signs and, being as flat as a pancake, you don't have much in the way of landmarks to help you - especially when it's dark.
I remember being driven there years ago in a Bedford Dormobile, took ages, even longer to get back because we got lost. In those days people often walked along the cess in order to get there, I guess that would be frowned upon now but it was a very practical way back then. Lengthmen used to ride their bikes along the cess. That stopped when we had the Coypu infestation. They used to burrow in to the banks of the ditches and made such large holes that as you walked along the cess you would suddenly fall knee deep in to a hole! You can guess what happened when riding a bike! The banks were basically cinder muck that had been dumped lineside to keep some semblance of a cess so was quite soft. Coypu were a real menace to the railway and the Lengthmen used to be paid a shotgun cartridge allowance so they could shoot them. They also trapped them in wire cages, you had to be very careful recovering the cages, keep fingers well away, a Coypu could bite clean through a finger if it could get to it.
Llanigraham
On Moderation
Quite a walk to the nearest road!
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...0234096a98fd:0xbd5b746aa97598c5!6m1!1e1?hl=en
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...0234096a98fd:0xbd5b746aa97598c5!6m1!1e1?hl=en
D1009
Established Member
Dovey Jn is the only one I can think of that comes close.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Altnabreac, though there is a dirt track there.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
What about Rannoch ( or whatever it's called exactly ) on the West Highland?
DarloRich
Veteran Member
whats that one in wales in the back end of nowhere? Cardiff? No - Sugar Loaf?
Remoteness is subjective:
Corrour is connected to the A86 road via the private estate of Corrour. You can walk over the mountains however but would need to ask for vehicular access in advance.
Altnabreac is similarly inaccessible. After the village of Westerdale, the road winds itself towards a loch which has gates which only the Forestry workers, estate workers and those who live withing the estate. You are 5 miles from Altnabreac at this point!
Smallbrook Junction is remote because it has no other access than via train.
Dovey Junction is a 1 mile walk from the A487.
Lympstone Commando is on the other side of a fence but the MOD may be watching you if you try to get inside. :P
Corrour is connected to the A86 road via the private estate of Corrour. You can walk over the mountains however but would need to ask for vehicular access in advance.
Altnabreac is similarly inaccessible. After the village of Westerdale, the road winds itself towards a loch which has gates which only the Forestry workers, estate workers and those who live withing the estate. You are 5 miles from Altnabreac at this point!
Smallbrook Junction is remote because it has no other access than via train.
Dovey Junction is a 1 mile walk from the A487.
Lympstone Commando is on the other side of a fence but the MOD may be watching you if you try to get inside. :P
darloscott
Member
A worthy mention could be Dent station - although it does have at least a road I guess, the village is just under 5 miles away.
Llanigraham
On Moderation
Sugar Loaf Halt is less than a 100 yards from the main road
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.0820133,-3.6859411,247m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Dyfi Junction has no road access
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place...86bd3ffa7589:0x252b9e5e88ac3b43!6m1!1e1?hl=en
RichmondCommu
Established Member
In all honesty it's not really that isolated given that the old station house is occupied and the hamlet of Cowgill is at the bottom of the Coal Road, complete with a pub.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
thats the one i meant. Sugar Loaf only looks like it is in the middle of nowhere
tsr
Established Member
Rannoch is certainly accessible by public road and has a small hotel and a couple of houses nearby. As above, Corrour has an access track but it is not only rather inaccessible to the public, but also prone to being blocked completely by large maintenance vehicles doing whatever it is that large maintenance vehicles do at Corrour. Also snow, ice etc. There is however a café of sorts at Corrour station itself. Supplies to both the café at Corrour and hotel at Rannoch are often brought in by employees onboard trains from Fort William / Mallaig. Driving is seemingly done only when strictly necessary.
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Berney Arms, the settlement itself, like Altnabreac, served by a private track, Its about 4km out to to the A47, whereas Altnabreac is 10km from a public road near Strathmore Lodge. Berney Arms (the station) may only be reached by a public footpath a further 0.5km from the settlement.
Berney Arms (the settlement) is also served by well trodden excellent paths along the riverbank that lead to Reedham Station (the Wherrymans Way, about 6km) and Yarmouth Station (the Weavers Way, about 8km). Both routes are as you would expect as flat as a pancake and it is very easy to maintain a good walking pace to either destination/
I really do wonder if some of the posters on this thread ever go out walking in the country? Yes paths can be muddy, yes there are cows, yes if it rains you'll get wet, yes you'll need a torch if its dark.:roll::roll: A map may well be advisable, although perhaps not necessary for Yarmouth.
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Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
I was probably actually thinking of Corrour wasn't I?
David57
Member
Getting away from the original spirit of the thread, if the pub is that remote (I have visited it twice many years ago), how was the Beer delivered?!!
gazthomas
Established Member
I'm with you
CockneySparrow
Member
Didn't know there was bike racks there, oh don't tell me GA have invested in some nice red bikes for Berney Arms lol
Is the shelter been replaced yet
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Think you can get to the pub by road
Kite159
Veteran Member
Couple metal loops on the platform to lock bikes up against
No shelter whatsoever on the platform. But was very peaceful and somewhere I will probably go back to later in the year for a walk along the river
There is a private track from the A47 to the pub but no public road.
Llanigraham
On Moderation
By boat?
Mill is only open for prebooked groups. However it and the other buildings in the area - including the pub - could afford some external shelter from horizontal rain if needed. (The area is shown here: http://binged.it/1S2RQ4j )
A while back a landlord made a fuss about getting beer delivered by wherry for publicity purposes. However as I said in the post three before yours there is a perfectly serviceable vehicle track from the pub to the A47 for use by the owners of the buildings in the settlement. The place may be an unusually remote site for a station, but is not particularly remote in the context of the UK countryside. To quote the estate agents brochure attached to post #16.
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tsr
Established Member
Indeed. Whilst I entered enthusiastically into the spirit of discussing Corrour et al, rural stations in Norfolk, rather than the Scottish or Welsh Highlands, say, all appear to have serviceable paths or roads of some sort leading to them, and in addition, as has correctly been pointed out, in that area you might not be able to get mobile signal or hail a cab, but a village or town is not usually more than a few miles away. Walking in poor weather around the Broads is sometimes a chore even for the best equipped (I speak from quite extensive experience, having felt the full brunt of horizontal rain and snow many times whilst trudging along a random bridleway somewhere between Norwich and Yarmouth or Lowestoft) but unless you're in a raging thunderstorm, rather unfit, or you try to swim across a river, you're actually fairly unlikely to come to much harm compared to many other parts of Britain.
I'd far rather wander down to Berney Arms, miss the train and have to find some random bus stop on the A47, than have to cross a mountain torrent on the side of a Scottish island in order to get the last ferry for two and a half days. In fact I'd also rather be stuck at Berney Arms than Buckenham, as Buckenham is rather more damp and Lingwood or Cantley wouldn't be where I'd want to go anyway, so I'd probably have to get a friend with a boat to rescue me from Rockland or something, and then I'd get laughed at in the pub.
I'd far rather wander down to Berney Arms, miss the train and have to find some random bus stop on the A47, than have to cross a mountain torrent on the side of a Scottish island in order to get the last ferry for two and a half days. In fact I'd also rather be stuck at Berney Arms than Buckenham, as Buckenham is rather more damp and Lingwood or Cantley wouldn't be where I'd want to go anyway, so I'd probably have to get a friend with a boat to rescue me from Rockland or something, and then I'd get laughed at in the pub.
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Because it is practically impossible to 100% guarentee getting anywhere on time, since you have to guess in advance how much time to allow, the amount of padding time available may be limited depending on initial commitments, and there is always the chance, even if it is very small, that external influences causing travel delays will exceed the padding time. Yes you could in extreme cases get to the station the day before and pitch camp for the night but that is getting outside the realms of practicality in many cases. How do you know you are not going to get the one in a hundred year obstuction on any journey you make, or do you have so much free time you can afford to hang around a station for hours when the ridiculous doesn't end up happening? Missing trains is not always due to carelessness, and it is unfair to judge until you know the circumstances of any particular incident.
This thread brings to mind a book which some might find of some interest. Published within the past couple of years its Tiny Stations, by a chap called Dixe Wills who Id never heard of before I happened on the book. Wills is an author and journalist, specialising on writing about eco-friendly travel, mostly in Britain. Hes not a railway enthusiast as such; but the book gives some interesting insights into a particular aspect of Great Britains railways, from the perspective of a mostly sympathetic non-gricer. I found him sometimes, from my point of view, a bit irritatingly socially and politically right-on; and equally irritatingly, tending to be facetious and whimsy (a touch of the Bill Brysons) but nonetheless, on balance enjoyed the book.
It basically concerns his setting out to explore, in Great Britain, those national-network rail lines featuring stations which, above all, appear in the timetable as request stops: said stations and halts often physically very small, and / or difficult of access other than by rail, and / or served by overall, extremely few workings. Berney Arms shows up in the book; as do Dovey Junction, Sugar Loaf, and Corrour, all mentioned in this thread. Another venue featured is Shippea Hill, on the Ely Norwich line; whose service if I have things rightly, is just: Mondays to Fridays, one morning working eastbound (nothing in the opposite direction) -- and Saturdays, one morning working eastbound and one a couple of hours later, westbound. I am in many ways not immensely well-up on the present-day (IMO largely depressing) British real, as opposed to preserved, rail scene; and was unaware until recently, how surprisingly large, to me, a number of stations on the network are extremely meagrely served to the point of their practical usefulness seeming almost nil.
It basically concerns his setting out to explore, in Great Britain, those national-network rail lines featuring stations which, above all, appear in the timetable as request stops: said stations and halts often physically very small, and / or difficult of access other than by rail, and / or served by overall, extremely few workings. Berney Arms shows up in the book; as do Dovey Junction, Sugar Loaf, and Corrour, all mentioned in this thread. Another venue featured is Shippea Hill, on the Ely Norwich line; whose service if I have things rightly, is just: Mondays to Fridays, one morning working eastbound (nothing in the opposite direction) -- and Saturdays, one morning working eastbound and one a couple of hours later, westbound. I am in many ways not immensely well-up on the present-day (IMO largely depressing) British real, as opposed to preserved, rail scene; and was unaware until recently, how surprisingly large, to me, a number of stations on the network are extremely meagrely served to the point of their practical usefulness seeming almost nil.
You do realise you're expressing moral indignation at comments made about a hypothetical situation?
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