Station Codes

[pitdiver]

Manchester International Airport is MIA, although the airport is MAN, from where you can fly to MIA (Miami).

Luton Airport Parkway is LTN, just like Luton Airport, but since FCC started charging for the bus trip, the airport itself is now LUT.

The "St Albans City" designation lives on in SAC, but Waverley is nowhere to be seen in EDB.

Luton Airport is LUA
Luton is LUT
Luton Parkway is LTN.

As per NRE

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Waverley is nowhere to be seen in EDB.

Only if you have never heard of such a named station as Edinburgh Waverley..

 

[snowball]

so using this in conjunction with the pronounciation of "LLAN" as "CLAN", the pronounciation of that settlement is "Clan-Roost".

I think THL is closer than CL as an English representation of Welsh LL.

No doubt we'll both be corrected on this point.

 

[Bedpan]

An interesting one I unintentionally found a few hours ago would be Llanrwst, arguably the station most commonly spelled incorrectly, whose code is also effectively a spelling error! Instead of the obvious LRW, which is not used by any station, it is treated as LWR, reflecting the common (but incorrect) spelling of "Llanwrst"...

Elsewhere, a more recent example of an oddball is Southend Airport, whose code is SIA. It is to be assumed that the "I" stands for "International", as the letter I is nowhere to be found in Southend Airport until after the A.

Under normal circumstances, this station would have surely been coded SOA, to match the fact that stations in major settlements beginning with "South-" are all named "SO-", as can be seen here:

SOC = Southend Central
SOE = Southend East
SOP = Southport
SOU = Southampton Central
SOV = Southend Victoria

But then there is a sixth one in this group which destroys the SOA idea:

SOA = Southampton Airport Parkway

So SIA has to do instead. I suppose you could argue that SIA is technically in Rochford, but then SOA is technically in Eastleigh...

I was going to pull you up on that, but then I realised that you were referring only to stations in major settlements beginning with So, rather than all stations starting with so.

 

[Mojo]

At an absolute guess here: Farringdon is managed neither by NR or an NR TOC, in this case, LUL - hence "Z" is affixed to it.

Station such as Baker Street (does it still have a code?), Canada Water and Whitechapel share the "Z" suffix.

But bear in mind these are the codes used by NR; London Underground, and I assume other Metro companies, have their own coding system!

 

[dave55uk]

There are of course a few that don't need shortening: IBM; WEM; WYE; RYE; ORE; PAR.

Also ELY.

 

[Bedpan]

And ASH, and also LYE

 

[mirodo]

And LEE.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Two that tend to get confused

BHM - Birmingham New Street

BMH - Bournemouth

 

[CheekyBandit]

ATW...Alton Towers

ATW appears to still be used for Alton Towers, presumably for a rail, transfer and park admission package. Midland Mainline used to offer one.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

.... EAB is london underground ealing broadway

I thought it was ZEB?

 

[mattyb1405]

I used to get the train to The Hawthorns daily for work via Smethwick Galton Bridge and if I didn't have a pass and the station wasn't manned, often I'd attempt to buy a ticket on the train, on occasions, I'd be at Galton Bridge and despite looking from Bham New Street they'd still not of found The Hawthorns on the ticket machine..... (originating station was Tile Hill, change at Bham New Street to go to Galton Bridge and then to the Hawthorns - Tile Hill was often closed before the first train left and no one selling onboard - despite many people boarding at Tile Hill).
I never felt inclined to leave the platforms at New Street to buy a ticket, not sure if this was actually allowed or not, but I did always try to buy a ticket on my journey !

 

[marks87]

I quite like that ABC is Altnabreac, so anyone being clever and asking for a ticket to "ABC" will end up at one of (if not the) most isolated stations on the network.

 

[dvboy]

Sandwell & Dudley is SAD

 

[Ivo]

Ever since I first knew about these codes, two stations from near to where I grew up always struck me as being amusing - Leigh-on-Sea and Southend Central.

LES and SOC > Les's Sock

Or, if you want to think about it a different way, LES could stand for a certain other word whose second half begins in B, ends in N and has two other vowels...

I thought it was ZEB?

ZEB also matches my information.

As far as LUL themselves are concerned though, their part of what we know as EAL is actually EBY - a pretty straightforward code. None of EAB, EAL and ZEB are used by LUL, although EAC is - but not for Ealing Common as you might expect - it's East Acton.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

On the "Station Codes "quiz this evening, that covers stations in Great Britain, we had an attempt to post a code of BHN to solve, which caused some thinking, until it was realised that was the code for Ballyhaunis in County Mayo. Eire.

 

[ModernRailways]

There are codes associated with each of the stations on that bit of the Metro:
Park Lane - CIC
University - UNV
Millfield - MIF
Pallion - PAI
South Hylton - SHZ

Whether they are unique to Nexus or also used on the National Rail network I don't know. I'm sure someone will though..

I suspect it is to do with the services running on NR metals at this point. If you look at Realtime Trains or such, you will find they report on the NR systems for part of this journey

Indeed flymo did.

ALL of the Tyne and Wear Metro stations have 3 digit codes associated with them. They were printed on the Metro ticket by the Metro ticket issuing machine at one point and they may well still be. No idea though as I don't live there any more. (CEN for Central, MMT for Monument etc...)

There is an online list somewhere of all of the Metro station codes somewhere.

On the old 'small' tickets they displayed the station code, now however on the new 'large' tickets that will be used in the barriers it actually lists the full station name instead. I'm guessing this is easier for the Inspectors and easier for passengers instead of some dodgy code.

All of the Metro stations have 3 letter codes, however some are just for use by Metro/Nexus and not by National/Network Rail. For example, Heworth has two codes, one is used by National/Network Rail and the other is used by Nexus/Metro.

Those stations between Pelaw and Sunderland show up on the National/Network Rail because they are on NR metals and NR trains run along it. Metro trains are actually classified as Class 994 in TOPS because of the fact they use NR metals.

As for a list of Metro codes, they can be found here although it doesn't include the Pelaw - South Hylton line.