Trivia: which railway station is furthest from the town it serves?

scotrail158713 · 10 Oct 2019

Musselburgh sprung to mind for me. However it only comes up at 1.5 miles on Google Maps, and there is a lot of housing and Queen Margaret University by the station so I wouldn’t say its purpose is serving Musselburgh town centre.

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61653 HTAFC · 10 Oct 2019

Weekender said:
I spent last weekend in Yeovil, Pen Mill station is only a pleasant 20 minute walk if you take the path through the country park. Unfortunately although it is well signposted from the town there doesn’t appear to be any signs at the station end.

Around a decade ago it took the same 20mins to drive from the town centre to Pen Mill, so I assumed it must be further than it actually is!

John Webb · 10 Oct 2019

Ken H said:
Clapham(N Yorks) and Giggleswick are both a fair way from the villages they are named for......

Clapham (N Yorks) I make out to be just under a mile and a half from the station that serves it.
Giggleswick station is just under a mile from the village centre; Settle station is just over the mile from Giggleswick by road, and half that distance on foot as there is a short cut by a footbridge across the River Ribble which separates the two settlements.

anti-pacer · 10 Oct 2019

Thirsk springs to mind.

Mag_seven · 10 Oct 2019

Dr Hoo said:
Chester Road station is a 71-mile walk from Chester. Google maps suggests a pleasant 23 hour 12 minute stroll, largely alongside the scenic A51.

Good try but the OP specifically ruled out stations with the suffix "road" in them.

geoffk said:
Excluding stations with the suffix "Road" or "Parkway".

swt_passenger · 10 Oct 2019

Mag_seven said:
Good try but the OP specifically ruled out stations with the suffix "road" in them.

But he seems to have changed his mind in post #16...

Mag_seven · 10 Oct 2019

swt_passenger said:
But he seems to have changed his mind in post #16...

Is there a town called "Yellow Brick" anywhere in the UK?

bearhugger · 10 Oct 2019

anti-pacer said:
Thirsk springs to mind.

Only about a mile and a half. Only takes me about 30 minutes to walk and I’m not the fastest walker.

Mcr Warrior · 10 Oct 2019

This thread brings to mind the old quote of the weary traveller at Dent Station who asked "Wouldn't it have been better to build the station near the village?" to which the railway employee replied, " Yes madam, but we thought it better to build it near the railway line."

Mugby · 10 Oct 2019

For a sizeable town, Gainsborough Lea Road is in a hopeless position in relation to the town centre - and poorly signposted.

Thankfully the situation has been eased considerably with the new hourly Northern service from Sheffield to Gainsborough Central.

thenorthern · 10 Oct 2019

Sandwell and Dudley is quite far from Dudley town although I am told it was named after the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and not the town of Dudley.

I suppose another question is how far the station in an urban area is from the centre of the urban area for example Livingston North station is within Livingston proper but its some distance from the town centre.

Cherry_Picker · 10 Oct 2019

thenorthern said:
Sandwell and Dudley is quite far from Dudley town although I am told it was named after the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and not the town of Dudley.

It's a good three and a half miles from the town of Dudley and Sandwell doesn't really exist beyond the fact it's the name of an organisation people pay their council tax to. Previously it was called Oldbury but it's not really in the middle of Oldbury either, it's more like the halfway point between Oldbury and West Bromwich.
Basically the entire area is urban sprawl where multiple settlements are contiguous with eachother, there are a lot of people living in the area so the station probably justifies an intercity service, but nobody could come up with a good name.

mirodo · 11 Oct 2019

Mag_seven said:
A bit cheeky but there must be loads of "namesakes" where one town of the same name has a station but the other one doesn't e.g. the station "Stonehouse" (in Gloucestershire) is 187 miles away from Stonehouse in South Lanarkshire!

264 miles from Hurst Green station in Surrey to its namesake village in Lancashire.

scotrail158713 · 11 Oct 2019

thenorthern said:
I suppose another question is how far the station in an urban area is from the centre of the urban area for example Livingston North station is within Livingston proper but its some distance from the town centre.

I’ve just looked it up. 1.5 miles from the town centre to both Livingston North and South.

AM9 · 11 Oct 2019

scotrail158713 said:
I’ve just looked it up. 1.5 miles from the town centre to both Livingston North and South.

The walking distance from the platforms of Dartford station and the town it serves is 24.7 miles, assuming no other vehicle is used and avoiding getting wet. The lowest dry crossing on the Dart is Bridgetown in Totnes.

HowardGWR · 11 Oct 2019

Dent takes the prize, clearly, especially due to the lack of pedestrian paths. Thornford in Dorset was similarly remote from the village in this respect, but if you have a look with Google Earth Street View, a new tarmacked path has been recently extended to the centre of the village, over 1.25 km away. Crewkerne is over 1.5 km away from the centre of Crewkerne and in fact should be called Misterton.

pdeaves · 11 Oct 2019

AM9 said:
The walking distance from the platforms of Dartford station and the town it serves is 24.7 miles, assuming no other vehicle is used and avoiding getting wet. The lowest dry crossing on the Dart is Bridgetown in Totnes.

For clarity, do you mean Dartmouth, not Dartford? The station to which you refer would then be 'Kingswear' so doesn't quite count. Nice thought, though!

edwin_m · 11 Oct 2019

Another cause of confusion is the use of "Junction" to mean the junction for not the junction in. Usually the branch line connection was quite short (Stourbridge probably the only surviving one) but not always. Limerick Junction is over 20 miles from Limerick, although it's not such a long way to Tipperary.

61653 HTAFC · 11 Oct 2019

edwin_m said:
Another cause of confusion is the use of "Junction" to mean the junction for not the junction in. Usually the branch line connection was quite short (Stourbridge probably the only surviving one) but not always. Limerick Junction is over 20 miles from Limerick, although it's not such a long way to Tipperary.

Llandudno Junction also. The area around the station is now known as Llandudno Junction, so one could argue that it is no longer so far from the settlement it serves.

PTR 444 · 11 Oct 2019

The OP asks for stations that are furthest away from the town they serve, however that is not necessarily the same as stations that are furthest away from the settlement they are named after.

For example, Moreton station in Dorset is 1.5 miles from the village it is named after, however it is tiny and a much bigger proportion of passengers would come from the larger village of Crossways, which is only half a mile away. You could therefore say that Moreton station is primarily there to serve Crossways rather than Moreton itself.

johnnychips · 11 Oct 2019

^ and if Dent had been called Cowgill it wouldn’t keep winning the prize.

AM9 · 11 Oct 2019

pdeaves said:
For clarity, do you mean Dartmouth, not Dartford? The station to which you refer would then be 'Kingswear' so doesn't quite count. Nice thought, though!

Doh! I think it might have been a spellchecker, - I should have been paying more attention. I've probably typed Dartford more times recently than Dartmouth.
Yes I know that Kingswear station is the real name but it is also effectvely the Dartmouth station as the booking office is across the water. Didn't the platform signs once say 'Kingswear for Dartmouth'?

Peter C · 11 Oct 2019

Kingham station, on the Cotswold Line, is closer to the village of Bledington than it is to Kingham and is about a mile from Kingham itself. I can't remember the measurements exactly, though.

-Peter

edwin_m · 11 Oct 2019

AM9 said:
Doh! I think it might have been a spellchecker, - I should have been paying more attention. I've probably typed Dartford more times recently than Dartmouth.
Yes I know that Kingswear station is the real name but it is also effectvely the Dartmouth station as the booking office is across the water. Didn't the platform signs once say 'Kingswear for Dartmouth'?

Historically Dartmouth station was a building with a booking office and a quay for the ferry. Kingswear was a proper station also with a booking office and a walkway through to the other quay. So Dartmouth station is actually very convenient for Dartmouth, but unlike Dent station it's not very convenient for the railway!

Taunton · 11 Oct 2019

edwin_m said:
Another cause of confusion is the use of "Junction" to mean the junction for not the junction in. Usually the branch line connection was quite short (Stourbridge probably the only surviving one) but not always. Limerick Junction is over 20 miles from Limerick, although it's not such a long way to Tipperary.

Clapham Junction was neither in Clapham (it's in mid-Battersea), nor a junction for Clapham - until the London Overground line opened a few years ago, some 170 years after the station was named.

edwin_m · 11 Oct 2019

Taunton said:
Clapham Junction was neither in Clapham (it's in mid-Battersea), nor a junction for Clapham - until the London Overground line opened a few years ago, some 170 years after the station was named.

Interesting. Wikipedia reckons it was because Clapham was a fashionable district at the time and Battersea wasn't. At least anyone making the obvious mistake only has to can get the Overground two stops to Clapham High Street.

Calthrop · 11 Oct 2019

edwin_m said:
Another cause of confusion is the use of "Junction" to mean the junction for not the junction in. Usually the branch line connection was quite short (Stourbridge probably the only surviving one) but not always. Limerick Junction is over 20 miles from Limerick, although it's not such a long way to Tipperary.

(My bolding) I wonder how many times that joke has been made in the past 105 years (@edwin_m: not "dissing" you -- I've made it on these Forums, too !). Ireland had a tendency to this sort of thing: Bundoran was getting on for 40 miles from Bundoran Juction, and Cookstown 25 miles or more from Cookstown Junction.

MarkWiles · 11 Oct 2019

I once walked from Folkestone Central to the town centre. It's probably not that far but it certainly felt like it was located in a different county especially as you never quite see the "town centre" until you reach a ring road that looks for all the world like the Nurnburgring.

SparkieLover · 11 Oct 2019

How about Bexleyheath (Barnehurst is nearer to Bexleyheath Broadway)

edwin_m · 11 Oct 2019

Calthrop said:
(My bolding) I wonder how many times that joke has been made in the past 105 years (@edwin_m: not "dissing" you -- I've made it on these Forums, too !). Ireland had a tendency to this sort of thing: Bundoran was getting on for 40 miles from Bundoran Juction, and Cookstown 25 miles or more from Cookstown Junction.

In that case maybe I should post my limerick about Limerick Junction again.

Trivia: which railway station is furthest from the town it serves?

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