One man's day trip from Scotland to Stourbridge to ride on the town's train goes viral

Not many people will find the little train that shuttles between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town stations particularly remarkable, but Neil Hughes made the near 700-mile round trip last week just to ride on the 0.8-mile railway line.

The retired air traffic controller left his home in southwest Scotland at 5am on Tuesday, February 27, and drove to Glasgow Airport. From there he flew to Belfast before connecting with a flight to Birmingham.

Once at Birmingham International, he caught a train to New Street, walked to Snow Hill and then boarded a train to Stourbridge Junction, the start of the 4,224ft trip to the town's other station.

Neil explained that he flew via the Northern Ireland capital as there was no direct flight from Glasgow to Birmingham in the morning.

However the three flights and six train services all ran to time, allowing him to get home 18 hours after he left his front door.

Neil credited his interest in the line as being due to a project organised by YouTuber Geoff Marshall, who visited al 2,563 UK railway stations with partner Vicki Pipe in 2017.

"I thought that and thought 'that's a bit different, I'll have to try that one day'," he said. "I finally got round to it. I'm retired so I've got some free time, though I thought I would go down.

"It was quite a long journey."

He continued: "It's the uniqueness of the service that attracted me to it. I thought it was quite cute, if you can call a train cute."

The train is the Parry People Mover, a four-wheel, 8.9-metre-long vehicle that has operated on the line since 2009. Uniquely for a British train, it uses a flywheel which stores energy when the unit is turning around or going downhill so it can accelerate rapidly when required, although the top speed along the line is 20mph.

Trains run every 10 minutes along Britain's shortest branch line which was opened in 1879.

"There's nothing like it in the country, if the world," added Neil.

Neil detailed his journey on the Dull Men's Club Facebook page at the second attempt after the first post was rejected.

By Wednesday morning it had attracted 17,000 reactions, close to 2,500 comments and more than 500 shares.

"The fact it's gained so much traction was a bit strange to me," he said. "I thought it was reasonably interesting and people might enjoy it.

"People have looked at it and thought 'that's good'. Maybe they will get a few more visitors to Stourbridge over the next few months.

"There have been plenty of people saying 'I never knew about this, I will have to pay a visit'."

While Paul enjoys travelling by train - he's crossed Canada by rail and will be doing a three-day voyage across the United States this year - but is glad to have ticked off his trip to the Black Country.

"It's taken seven years but I got there in the end," he said.

The dad of two said he didn't think any of his kids or wife would choose to do a day like this but 'indulge his strange interests'.

Nevertheless they have found the social media fame "quite amusing".

Ian Tomlinson, station supervisor at Stourbridge Junction, said that most visitors still come to see George, the station cat.

"We have loads of people coming to see the cat," he said. "We had someone from Scotland this week."

That Scottish visitor was not Neil though.

"I hadn't realised to put two and two together about George otherwise I would have sought him out," he said. "Maybe I will have to get back to meet George. It's a shame I missed him."