A RAILWAY planner from York has raised £1,000 for families with children with cancer after taking up a “mileagathon” challenge by Virgin Trains.

The company asked members of the Railway Performance Society, which brings together amateur and professional specialists in the running and timekeeping of trains, to see how far they could travel in a day on Virgin services on the West Coast Main Line.

Money raised through sponsorship went to Virgin’s current charity, CLIC Sargent, which supports families with children with cancer.

Fourteen members accepted the challenge, including Jonathan Tyler, of Passenger Transport Networks in Stonegate, who raised just over £1,000 – the largest individual amount – by travelling on nine trains for a total distance of 1,147 miles. He said by the time he got home to York, he felt a strange swaying sensation after 15 hours on tilting trains. “When I passed over a section for the fifth time I did begin to wilt a little, but my work includes designing timetables for high-speed trains on this route so to see how it operates now was always interesting.”