Originally Posted by
contango
That would depend on the area.
Yes, even here in Australia there are a lot of smaller towns with active or inactive train stations. The town Rowan and I live in has an inactive one. A town which Rowan and I use as the start/finish point for a lot of our centuries has an active one. And in another nearby town, which runs a winter randonnee, participants start at the train station. All are situated in locations with very little traffic.
Which actually brings to mind another idea. Here in Victoria, there are heaps of rail trails, and there are some randonnee routes which are run at least partially on those rail trails. There's one really nice rail trail (paved/sealed) a little north of us which is long enough to do a decent randonnee, and it uses inactive train stations as toilet/water/picnic stops.
There's also another rail trail that goes through our town (and starts/finishes at the inactive train station mentioned above), which could be used for randonnees up to 200K, but unfortunately it's gravel, so it could only be used for off-road randonnees.
Originally Posted by
contango
but still didn't address the implications of each control point covering an area that included a station, and a rider submitting a train ticket to the next control point as their proof of passage.
He doesn't know what the implications might be ... maybe the idea of doing creative permanents is so foreign to him that all he can do is criticise.
However, I'd encourage you to ask one of the "Powers-that-Be" in Audax UK whether a ticket from a train station, with a time stamp, could be used as proof of passage ... and report back here. I'm curious now ... interested to hear what they might say.