Do you want to have a railtour in the UK itself or start in the UK and go to the rest of Europe?

As a European you’re limited to interrail passes. With global passes can only use two traveldays in your own country. To get out, and to get back in. You can take as many trains as you want though, on those two days.

If you have another nationality, you should be able to use the Eurail global pass, and then you can cruise around the UK too, without limits.

I’m a UK citizen, and want to travel around the UK.  no travel to europe.

Then there’s no suitable solution for your wishes here with Interrail. Nobody can use a pass in one’s own country (except to travel in or out, or to the nearest ferry port or airport).

Perhaps some rail savvy fellow countrymen can help you to find a proper solution for your wishes? I guess there will be some creative solutions with domestic tickets, to do a railtour.

The only ticket available to British residents to give unlimited national coverage similar to interrail is called All Line Rover, this is only available for 7 or 14 consecutive days

However in comparison to interrail this is extremely expensive.

7 day £540 standard class or £818 first class

14 day £818 standard class or £1250 first class

There is also a restriction on using them in/out of London and Birmingham on the main Intercity operators before 10.00

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/times_fares/pr20780b0a0400020167ed620a7e504e.aspx

In fact to get the virtue of full cover of BritRail there have been some odd cases reported of Brits going to living in ´foreign countries-oh dear, what a sacrifice!´ for as long as to get a local registration to prove they do live there and then as swift as the trains can run went to blighty/blimey and started to ´do all the lines´.

Also check railforums.co.uk for more info on how to do this in the most affordable way.

 There is a freedom of Scotland Pass.

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/tickets/combined-tickets-travel-passes/spirit-of-scotland

Northern Railways have a range of regional rovers.

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/tickets/rangers-and-rovers/rovers

Combining advance purchase tickets for longer journeys and local/regional rovers is likely to be considerably cheaper than the ALR, also you don’t have the pressure of an expensive consecutive ticket that really needs to be used every day to get any value out of it.

This website gives an overview of all available rover tickets in Britain, of note is that some are combined multi-mode tickets giving bus coverage to areas not served by rail.

http://railrover.org/

For what it’s worth, I’m a Brit living in Greece (with Greek residency ID to prove it) and I just did an 8-day tour of the UK. I took a total of 92 trains and even though I have a ‘local’ accent, not one person questioned my residency for the whole trip. Of course, I’m not suggesting you should just buy a UK pass and lie about your residency...

It’s certainly a cracking deal for Brits abroad who want to visit f&f around the UK.

I would hope the current free and easy approach isn’t abused.

It wasn’t so long ago that you couldn’t travel *at all* in your home country. The current system allows for departure and arrival - and for me living in Newcastle, it’s very valuable! - but does rely on passengers playing by the rules.

If rail companies sense they are losing revenue from abuse, they will simply pull out.

I agree. The system works well as it is, using a certain amount of trust and I hope it doesn't get abused too often. I plan to make similar trips in the future and I'd hate for it to become more complicated.

I suppose Interrail could introduce a system where they verify your ID/residency themselves before activating the ticket, but that would add extra cost and cause delays.

As things stand, if I suddenly needed to make a really expensive journey while abroad,  I could theoretically buy a pass, activate it, set up a trip and be on a train within 3 or 4 minutes! For example, an open off-peak return London-Glasgow (any off peak train) is GBP185, yet I could get a 3-day pass and take ANY train for GBP157 and still have a day to spare!