A mystery traveller from Manchester is set to let the public decide where he will travel in his week-long train expedition, as part of an adventurous social experiment.
The individual, known only as ‘Train Ride Man’, will be using the UK rail network to visit as many places as possible during a week in May.
Each journey will be selected at random from the suggestions made by his Twitter followers.
The rules for the experiment are that he must only travel by train and he must never visit the same place twice.
He will be posting photographic evidence of each stop on his mystery tour and will then ask a stranger on the platform to randomly select his next journey from the suggestions made through Twitter.
When asked why he was undertaking the trip into the unknown, Train Ride Man told MM: “It’s a bit mad isn’t it? There’s that sense of the unknown and it’s a bit exciting.
“I’m funding the train fares myself and ultimately I just want to see what will happen and where I end up.”
Train Ride Man is all too aware that leaving his fate in the hands of the Twittersphere, who have earned a notorious reputation for their trolling antics, could see him travelling to some rather unsavoury locations.
“It’s the general nature of people on social media that they’ll send me to sh*t places but that’s the point,” Train Ride Man said. “I want to see where people will send me. You never know, I might end up somewhere really nice.
“So far I’ve had suggestions from Teeside Airport to Penzance and Nev from BBC 3’s The Call Centre suggested, Both in Wales.
“With the random nature of the destinations I could be looking at going from one end of the country to the other. I’ll be carrying a GPS so people will be able to follow me throughout the week and see where I am.”
MM decided we would throw in a destination of our own to throw into the hat, and have opted for Corrour Railway Station in Scotland, which admittedly isn’t the easiest to get to but the scenery surely make for a pleasant journey.
The adventure starts on Friday May 16 at 10am from Liverpool.
Get your suggestions to Train Ride Man by following @trainrideman on Twitter.
