A-Z of Railway Stations

In January 2019 I thought I would start a new challenge. I was on track to soon be compete my Guinness Challenge, i.e. visiting every European Capital City in search of a pint of Guinness. It was time for something new. This challenge would involve seeing if I could visit a station beginning with every letter of the alphabet – and in alphabetical order of course. I’ve always been fond of travelling by train. This would open up opportunities to visit places I’d never been to previously.

Would it even be possible? I hadn’t thought that far ahead to be honest. I was just keen to get going as soon as I could and see how far I got.

Things went pretty well and by the end of 2019 I had got as far as W for Welshpool when the Covid pandemic struck. I remember sitting in a pub in Cardiff city centre with my train enthusiast friend Ian, discussing the X,Y and Z stations in February 2020. It had become apparent that we would need to go aboard to find a station beginning with X. Our plan was to go to X for Xantan in North-West Germany, on the banks of the River Rhine and near the Dutch border. We would then stay in the region and find and station starting with Y in Belgium and then one starting with Z in the Netherlands.

It wasn’t until October 2022 that Covid restrictions had eased and an opportunity arose for us to venture over to Europe for me to complete the challenge finishing by visiting not one but three stations starting with Z.