To want to get on a train and just go....

[TheoriginalLEM]

See where i end up? Assuming i wouldn't have to pay and there would be no delays.

Im in the south east so my first stop would be London Victoria.

What criteria could I apply to keep my journey a) interesting and b) random.

When i was a child we had free train travel as my dad worked for British Rail. He often siad he would have liked to have done this.

Its always been something ive dreamt about doing. Sowhere will my fantasy train journey take me?

I love looking out of train windows.

Can't answer your question but I love travelling by train.

Hong Kong.

Get on at Ashford, east bound.

Paris, then I think you might have to go via Budapest but I'm not sure these days, Moscow, Ulan Bator, Beijing, Hong Kong.

Just checked: Paris to Moscow is easiest via Berlin and Warsaw now.

www.seat61.com/paris-moscow-express.htm

Oooh yes, when I used to commute via King's Cross mainline station, I would often have an urge to leap into a train going somewhere north eg Scotland just for the hell it. Not even knowing the destination.

Pack your toothbrush. And make sure you know where your towel is.

TressiliansStone, Paris to Moscow looks very tempting. Love the photos of the berths and the way they make so much out of small spaces.

I've been watching that race across the world program on the BBC and it's made me really want to do this! I'm too poor to really do it but it's lovely to fantasise about

Oooh moscow!!! That would be some scenery changes. I would feel like Dostoyevsky's idiot arriving on the train....in fact i could take it with me to read on the way having failed miserably and statrted it four times

I did go to Switzerland once to a conference, by train, as im scared to fly - not random but loved how the scenery changed

My great aunts both had free rail travel, back in the good old days

They would often go to the station and just get on the first train that pulled in. They'd disappear off for the day and went wherever the train took them.

Brilliant

I used to have a boss I hated when I commuted to Leeds by train. I used to stand on the platform in the evenings and fantasise about getting a train to Penzance or Edinburgh before trundling off to Wakefield

If you think that's swish, Wauden, check out the new Caledonian Sleeper (London Scottish destinations).

More importantly, they say they've sorted out the godawful bump at Carstairs, which woke you in the wee small hours so you could never get back to sleep.

I also had free train travel when I was growing up and I actually did this when I bunked off school for the day at around 15. I ended up in Newcastle 300 or so miles away from where I lived. This was before mobile phones etc and I am very glad I didn't get caught, run over etc as it would have been a long way for my parents to come and fetch me. I did have a lovely day though

I think you should do this and feedback. Maybe set some rules. So you will get on one of the next 3 trains leaving London for example so you don't end up in a really boring small town where there is nothing to do.

TheoriginalLEM, maybe bring a little chess set and ask a stranger to play, or something wacky, to get a conversation going with someone who looks interesting?
Keeping it random: chose a destination simply from its initial; stick a pin in a map and go to the nearest station; sketch people on the train.

As a bored teen, me and my best mate would ride the buses on a Friday evening as we had nothing better to do. We'd get a child day bus pass, then flip a coin to see what direction to go in. We'd get the first bus from the first bus stop, ride it to the end, and then get the next one that came along (or walk until we found another stop). We weren't "allowed" to get the same number bus twice in the same evening.
For some reason we thought this was great fun (might have been the MD20:20), the upside is that I have a good mental map of East London and it's bus routes from the mid 2000s 😁

Was thinking i had to go to the next platform -so if i arrive on platform four i have to leave on platform five, unless it takes me back where i was going .

I'd have to have egg sandwiches and a can of coke.

30 years ago, I went inter-railing. Basically went to one station, compared the map with the departure board, and chose where to go next according to where sounded most interesting.

After a couple of weeks, we decided to try to head as far north as we could go. Ended up in a tiny village in Norway, which had a fish-processing factory and nothing else. It was blinking cold as well.

Meanwhile, back in Oslo, there may well have been a ticket clerk having a jolly good laugh.