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How many stations in London

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Halsebee

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A question prompted by a TV programme recently, how many railway stations are there in London?
I realise this depends on what you define as London, and what is included as a railway station.....

Interested in answers, and suggested definitions of London in a rail sense (perhaps inside M25, but open to other definitions) I'd suggest all rail including underground and DLR but not trams.
 
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Horizon22

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I'd check here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London_railway_stations

This states 330 within Greater London, which is the official distinction of "London". The Wikipedia list also includes another 39 in Brentwood (Essex), Broxbourne (Hertfordshire), Buckinghamshire, Dartford, Elmbridge (Surrey), Epsom and Ewell (Surrey), Hertsmere (Hertfordshire), Reigate and Banstead (Surrey), Sevenoaks (Kent), Tandridge (Surrey), Three Rivers (Hertfordshire), Thurrock (Essex), Watford (Hertfordshire)
 
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Yunchy

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That's only heavy rail though, although some will also have Tube.

There are 270 Tube stations but some will be NR and some are outside London, mostly on the Metropolitan line.

45 DLR stations - again, some Tube and NR.

That's 645 stations but with duplicates and those outside London, I'd guess its around the 550-600 mark.

Depends of course where you stop with this. What about stations that are multiple stations, like Waterloo Tube and Waterloo mainline? Or abandoned stations that still exist including the whole Mail Rail system?
 

Horizon22

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That's only heavy rail though, although some will also have Tube.

There are 270 Tube stations but some will be NR and some are outside London, mostly on the Metropolitan line.

45 DLR stations - again, some Tube and NR.

That's 645 stations but with duplicates and those outside London, I'd guess its around the 550-600 mark.

Depends of course where you stop with this. What about stations that are multiple stations, like Waterloo Tube and Waterloo mainline? Or abandoned stations that still exist including the whole Mail Rail system?

Well yes, but we're talking about railway stations.
 

Snow1964

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You have to be very careful with definition of London for accurate count (which definition is Op using ?)

examples
Tolworth (in Kingston borough, but road it is on is outside the London LEZ boundary)
Hampton Court (technically in Molesey, Elmbridge borough in Surrey)
Kempton Park (outside, but part of station site is on border)
Hatton Cross (inside, but other side of A30 alongside station is Spelthorne borough)
 

davews

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Or 'London Terminals' of which there are 18, not all of them terminals.
I wondered what the answer given on the TV programme was.
 

Snow1964

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Or 'London Terminals' of which there are 18, not all of them terminals.
I wondered what the answer given on the TV programme was.

I am not even sure that is correct, some like London Bridge, Blackfriars (and now Paddington) have mix of terminating and through platforms.

Can a through station be classed as a terminal ?
 

zwk500

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I am not even sure that is correct, some like London Bridge, Blackfriars (and now Paddington) have mix of terminating and through platforms.
Also St Pancras and Liverpool Street. Honourable mention to Clapham Junction (which I don't think is in the terminals group) for P1 & 2 as well.
Can a through station be classed as a terminal ?
Depends and what you consider a 'station' to be. London Bridge is either 1 station (to passengers), or 2 or 4 separate stations (operationally) in the same building.
 

Watershed

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Can a through station be classed as a terminal ?
Vauxhall, Waterloo East, City Thameslink and Old Street are London Terminals for ticketing purposes, but all are through stations.
 

Snow1964

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Also St Pancras and Liverpool Street. Honourable mention to Clapham Junction (which I don't think is in the terminals group) for P1 & 2 as well.

Couldn‘t include Clapham Junction without including all the others with terminating platforms for Overground: Richmond, New Cross, Stratford (and lots more) etc
 
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You have to be very careful with definition of London for accurate count (which definition is Op using ?)

examples
Tolworth (in Kingston borough, but road it is on is outside the London LEZ boundary)
Hampton Court (technically in Molesey, Elmbridge borough in Surrey)
Kempton Park (outside, but part of station site is on border)
Hatton Cross (inside, but other side of A30 alongside station is Spelthorne borough)
Hatton Cross is in the London borough of Hounslow as is the surrounding area Spelthorne boundary is many miles away
 

yorkie

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That's only heavy rail though, although some will also have Tube.
LU is heavy rail ;) (yes even the tube lines)

I am not even sure that is correct, some like London Bridge, Blackfriars (and now Paddington) have mix of terminating and through platforms.

Can a through station be classed as a terminal ?
That depends on your definition.

For example it'd be crazy not to classify St Pancras, Blackfriars etc as terminals; as you say these stations have a mixture of platforms.

However although I would not consider Vauxhall a terminal station, it is a member of the London Terminals groups for ticketing purposes.

Then there is the debate around Paddington: is it three stations, two, or just one? It's all the same complex, but LU treat the two LU parts separately. You will be within the overall station complex, and undercover on railway property, if you walked between them.

However Bank/Monument is one station for LU purposes but the general public probably consider these to be two separate stations that just happen to have an underground link between them.
 

DynamicSpirit

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Then there is the debate around Paddington: is it three stations, two, or just one? It's all the same complex, but LU treat the two LU parts separately. You will be within the overall station complex, and undercover on railway property, if you walked between them.

However Bank/Monument is one station for LU purposes but the general public probably consider these to be two separate stations that just happen to have an underground link between them.

Wait till Crossrail opens - IIRC won't that have platforms connecting Liverpool Street to Moorgate and Farringdon to Barbican?
 

plugwash

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Then there is the debate around Paddington: is it three stations, two, or just one? It's all the same complex, but LU treat the two LU parts separately. You will be within the overall station complex, and undercover on railway property, if you walked between them.
And then there is the Kings Cross St pancras complex. Two national rail stations sharing an underground station.
 

bb21

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For forum activities, we have settled on the definition of a station as all platforms being numbered consecutively. Anything with a separate sequence is a separate station. Not without its own anomalies but generally seems to have worked well over the years. Paddington is therefore two stations, with the Hammersmith side the same as the mainline part. King's Cross St P complex is therefore four. Waterloo (East) is three with the drain a part of the mainline station. St Pancras high/low level is the only one I am slightly unsure about, as it is the only one iirc where both numbers and letters are used, so could in my mind equally be argued as either one station or two.

I never understood the differentiation between DLR and Tramlink for these purposes, as both are light rail, but some people seem to prefer to divvy them up along ticketing lines.
 

zwk500

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For forum activities, we have settled on the definition of a station as all platforms being numbered consecutively. Anything with a separate sequence is a separate station. Not without its own anomalies but generally seems to have worked well over the years. Paddington is therefore two stations, with the Hammersmith side the same as the mainline part. King's Cross St P complex is therefore four. Waterloo (East) is three with the drain a part of the mainline station. St Pancras high/low level is the only one I am slightly unsure about, as it is the only one iirc where both numbers and letters are used, so could in my mind equally be argued as either one station or two.

I never understood the differentiation between DLR and Tramlink for these purposes, as both are light rail, but some people seem to prefer to divvy them up along ticketing lines.
New Cross Gate having lettered platforms to distinguish from New Cross? :lol:
 

plugwash

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It's not in london and I don't know if it's displayed on the platform, but online sources seem to use "platform A" for the merseyrail platform at Liverpool Lime Street.
 

DynamicSpirit

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For forum activities, we have settled on the definition of a station as all platforms being numbered consecutively. Anything with a separate sequence is a separate station. Not without its own anomalies but generally seems to have worked well over the years. Paddington is therefore two stations, with the Hammersmith side the same as the mainline part. King's Cross St P complex is therefore four. Waterloo (East) is three with the drain a part of the mainline station. St Pancras high/low level is the only one I am slightly unsure about, as it is the only one iirc where both numbers and letters are used, so could in my mind equally be argued as either one station or two.

That's interesting and makes some sense. I would have thought that should be the second criteria though - the first being, do the two would-be-stations have the same name? Waterloo East and Waterloo are therefore different stations because of the names, as are Bank and Monument.

I never understood the differentiation between DLR and Tramlink for these purposes, as both are light rail, but some people seem to prefer to divvy them up along ticketing lines.

Surely the obvious differentiation is that tramlink has on-street running, which would never in normal circumstances be countenanced for the DLR - or indeed for anything in the UK that you'd normally call a 'train'. In the context of this thread, I would therefore agree with the OP that tramlink stops don't count as stations. (Most of them are more akin to glorified bus stops anyway).
 

40129

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On the basis that almost all the platforms at Monument-Bank (except for the Waterloo & City line) are within the same compulsory ticket area, and have one platform numbering series - Monument being plts 1-2 and Bank 4-10) - I would suggest it be counted as one station.

I believe there are a number of stations in Paris with different names on different lines, e.g Chatelet / Chatelet Les Halles, and probably elsewhere. In fact, I think it would be helpful if LT renamed the Bakerloo line platforms at Charing Cross as Trafalgar Square, which i where they are
 

bb21

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New Cross Gate having lettered platforms to distinguish from New Cross? :lol:
Yeah but I meant numbers and letters in the same station. Similarly Waterloo East and Waterloo are clearly two separate stations, primarily because they have different names.

That's interesting and makes some sense. I would have thought that should be the second criteria though - the first being, do the two would-be-stations have the same name? Waterloo East and Waterloo are therefore different stations because of the names, as are Bank and Monument.
I thought that would be obvious. :lol: Bank and Monument would be two separate stations, even though the numbers are continuous.

Surely the obvious differentiation is that tramlink has on-street running, which would never in normal circumstances be countenanced for the DLR - or indeed for anything in the UK that you'd normally call a 'train'. In the context of this thread, I would therefore agree with the OP that tramlink stops don't count as stations. (Most of them are more akin to glorified bus stops anyway).
Horses for courses, but personally I find that a bit of an odd classification, but the line between various light-rail classifications is usually quite blurry anyway so all depends on your perspective.
 
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norbitonflyer

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Hatton Cross is in the London borough of Hounslow as is the surrounding area Spelthorne boundary is many miles away
Since boundary changes in 1994 the entire Heathrow area, including Hatton Cross, is now in Hillingdon - the new boundary with Hounslow is the A30. The triple point with Spelthorne is a couple (not "many") miles down the road, just SW of terminal 4. However, when the terminal was built the Spelthorne boundary ran through the middle of both the terminal and the Tube station.
 

Horizon22

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Check the last sentence of the OP

Sure but I get very defensive about where London is! It has very clear, definite boundaries no matter how much such residents of places like Bromley or Romford claim to be in Kent or Essex!
 

yorkie

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This thread reminds me of this video:


"Where does London stop and the terrifying provincial nothingness begin?"

"Is it the end of the Tube?

Is it the M25?

Is it the end of London's postcode area?

If you must know, it's none of these.

London's phone code, postcode and so on were set up at different times by different people for different purposes. So where does London officially stop?

"The answer is right here, at the edge of the Greater London boundary

But why is it here and not, say, several metres to the left? Who drew this boundary and when?

And what difference does it make if you live inside it or not?

And why does this bit stick out here?

"Greater London has been this shape and this size since 1965

But to understand why, you need to look at what London was like in 1964....
 

etr221

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For forum activities, we have settled on the definition of a station as all platforms being numbered consecutively. Anything with a separate sequence is a separate station. Not without its own anomalies but generally seems to have worked well over the years. Paddington is therefore two stations, with the Hammersmith side the same as the mainline part. King's Cross St P complex is therefore four. Waterloo (East) is three with the drain a part of the mainline station. St Pancras high/low level is the only one I am slightly unsure about, as it is the only one iirc where both numbers and letters are used, so could in my mind equally be argued as either one station or two.

I never understood the differentiation between DLR and Tramlink for these purposes, as both are light rail, but some people seem to prefer to divvy them up along ticketing lines.
From an enquiry to the CPS, the difference (in law, according to them) between a Tramway and Railway is from The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 Section 2 .

According to which - by my reading - DLR is a railway and Tramlink a tramway.

I have a suspicion though that, based on it, it could at least have been argued that - before the Weymouth Tramway closed - 'National Rail' was a tramway and not a railway... at least in the eyes of the law...
 
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bb21

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From an enquiry to the CPS, the difference (in law, according to them) between a Tramway and Railway is from The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 Section 2 .

According to which - by my reading - DLR is a railway and Tramlink a tramway. I have a suspicion though that, based on it, it could at least have been argued that - before the Weymouth Tramway closed 'National Rail' was a tramway and not a railway... at least in the eyes of the law...
That's made me smile.
 

jopsuk

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how many stations is the Kings Cross St Pancras complex? I'd accept almost any answer between 1 and 7.

1, because it's possible to get between any two platforms without going outside.

7? From a user point of view in St Pancras the Southeastern, East Midlands Railway, Thameslink & Eurostar platform blocks are basically separate stations. At the Underground, the Sub Surface and Deep Tube lines form two distinct stations. That's six, plus Kings Cross (where the suburban shed isn't as distinct from the rest of the station)
 
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Since boundary changes in 1994 the entire Heathrow area, including Hatton Cross, is now in Hillingdon - the new boundary with Hounslow is the A30. The triple point with Spelthorne is a couple (not "many") miles down the road, just SW of terminal 4. However, when the terminal was built the Spelthorne boundary ran through the middle of both the terminal and the Tube station.
Don't get me going about the transfer of Heathrow by a former Mayor that subsequently became a member of parliament for part of Hillingdon.
 

janahan

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Since boundary changes in 1994 the entire Heathrow area, including Hatton Cross, is now in Hillingdon - the new boundary with Hounslow is the A30. The triple point with Spelthorne is a couple (not "many") miles down the road, just SW of terminal 4. However, when the terminal was built the Spelthorne boundary ran through the middle of both the terminal and the Tube station
Neither the terminals or the station were part of spelthorne or on the border of spelthorne at the time they were built. more than 100 -200 years ago, it (together with feltham, bedfont, and many others) were part of the Spelthorne hundtreth, an administrative section of Middlesex, not a county as such. in 1894 it was part of the Staines Rural Distrct administrative area (still part of Middlesex)

In 1904 until 1965 it was part of the Feltham Urban District (this period includes the airport/Terminal) construction. This is still middlesex.

In 1965 until 1994 it was part of hounslow in London This is the period Hatton Cross Station would have been constructed.

Finally as you have said correctly, in 1994 the area above the A30 was moved to hillingdon.

The modern borough of Spethorne (now in Surrey, not Middlesex) was also created in 1965.

So whilst parts of the airport grounds do border Spetlthorne, the Station was NEVER on the border or in Spelthorne (either the old hundredths abolished in 1894 or the modern borough from 1963)
 
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