Did you know that there is a South Western train that runs on the District Line? If not, you're probably not alone.

Geoff Marshall is a train enthusiast who has been to every railway station in the country.

He even holds a Guinness World Record for travelling to all London Underground stations in the fastest time possible.

He currently has 236,000 subscribers with his subscribers eager to see where he will be travelling to next.  

As part of one of his segments, he rode the early morning train from Basingstoke to Waterloo - via the District Line.

Geoff and friend Dave, also known as a "professional rare track basher", boarded the train ready for advance at 4.45am - filming their trip along the way.

In the YouTube video, Dave explains that the train goes past Woking, up through Wimbledon, then gets to Clapham Junction and up to Waterloo.

He adds that at Clapham Junction, the train meets another line that comes from Reading and from Windsor - and connecting the two is a track via East Putney, Southfields and Wimbledon Park down to Wimbledon.

"If those names sound familiar, that's because that's now the District Line" he says.

According to Geoff, the train only passes through the District Line once a day, although it doesn't stop at the usual District Line calling points.

He said that afterwards, the route curves off and joins the mainline again through Wandsworth town and back up to Clapham Junction.

There's also a late night return service in the evening.

"There's all these strange different bits of track and curves of track which get like one train a day, maybe two a day or in some cases one a week," said Geoff - but these are not so strange to Dave.

Dave has been practising his hobby of 'rare track bashing' for 10 or 12 years.

He explained: "It's been a long time of just ticking off not just every rare bit but every track in the country gradually.

"I've been over almost every line but there's some bits and pieces I'm still missing."

Geoff and Dave then listed the top five rare services that are hard to tick off, with another being a London local.

Geoff said: "In south east London there's the curve at New Beckenham which is very rarely used, but sometimes engineering works at the weekend will divert all the services this way.

Your Local Guardian: Geoff Marshall showed a map in his YouTube video of the New Beckenham and Beckenham Junction link (photo: Youtube/ Geoff Marshall)Geoff Marshall showed a map in his YouTube video of the New Beckenham and Beckenham Junction link (photo: Youtube/ Geoff Marshall)

"Engineering side effects is often a good way to tick off obscure pieces of line."

Much to their disappointment, around half way through the 10-minute video, Geoff and Dave reveal that after speaking to a guard - they have found out that the train they boarded won't actually use the District Line route.

Geoff said: "We told the guard what we were doing and he said 'sorry the driver doesn't go round East Putney'.

"He told us that due to the pandemic a lot of drivers have lost their route knowledge over the last 12-18 months and today there's a driver change at Woking and the driver that is getting on at Woking hasn't ridden the route for six months so he hasn't got permission to do it.

"W've honestly come all the way to Basingstoke to do this and the train is not going to do it.

"Under my face mask I'm trying to hide my dissappointment."

He then joked: "South Western if you're watching, Dave and I spent money to stay in a hotel at Basingstoke.

"In fact we've been planning this all winter and we almost did the New Beckenham curve but Dave said this one is easier to do because you've got to go down to Basingstoke to do it in its entirety... and we've been scuppered."

The pair laughed and sighed with despair.

"Such is this of such unique track bashing - sometimes it just doesn't work" they added.

Dave told Geoff he should go back and try again another time - and four days later that's what he did.

Geoff began in Wimbledon and it all went to plan - he managed to ride over one of the rarest train routes through south London.

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