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Trivia: Comparison of compass point extremities between neighbouring TOCs

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PTR 444

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I had a thought the other day and was wondering if GWR might be one of few TOCs to completely outcompete against a neighbouring TOC in all its geographical extremities. Taking GWR, it’s western and southernmost point is Penzance, northernmost is Worcester and easternmost is Gatwick Airport, although Brighton just about beat it until a couple of weeks ago. By comparison, SWR’s southernmost point is Weymouth, westernmost is Exeter St David’s, while it’s northernmost and easternmost point is London Waterloo. That means for 3 out of 4 compass points, GWR totally outcompetes SWR in terms of geographical operating extremities.

The point which it doesn’t quite outcompete is the easternmost, as Gatwick Airport is just a couple of miles further west from a ruler-straight line drawn south of Waterloo (the red line in the attached image proves this). Even Brighton didn’t quite make it for the many years it was on the GWR map despite being east of Gatwick as shown by the purple line in the second image.

Would be interesting to find some other similar comparisons.
 

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py_megapixel

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I think CrossCountry out-competes all TOCs whose territory it passes through, except ScotRail and LNER (which go further north in Scotland), and East Midlands and Greater Anglia (which go further east into Norfolk).

Pick a TOC near the centre of the network, such as Chiltern, LNR or even Northern, and there's no contest.
 

PTR 444

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I think CrossCountry out-competes all TOCs whose territory it passes through, except ScotRail and LNER (which go further north in Scotland), and East Midlands and Greater Anglia (which go further east into Norfolk).

Pick a TOC near the centre of the network, such as Chiltern, LNR or even Northern, and there's no contest.
It would certainly outcompete SWR for its easternmost point as Stansted Airport is further east than Waterloo, and tie with GWR for its southernmost and westernmost point of Penzance. I think the only other operators which have geographical extremities further than XC are Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Southeastern.
 

waverley47

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Don't forget that the westernmost station in the UK is Arisaig, meaning Scotrail are the only TOC to serve two cardinal stations.
 

Peter0124

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I think CrossCountry out-competes all TOCs whose territory it passes through, except ScotRail and LNER (which go further north in Scotland), and East Midlands and Greater Anglia (which go further east into Norfolk).

Pick a TOC near the centre of the network, such as Chiltern, LNR or even Northern, and there's no contest.
Is Penzance further west than Mallaig? if not then I think Scotrail win it for the most western and northern TOC.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Is Penzance further west than Mallaig? if not then I think Scotrail win it for the most western and northern TOC.
Nope. Penzance has a longitude of about 5 degrees 32 minutes West of the Greenwich meridian. Whereas Mallaig is approximately 5 degrees 50 minutes West of the Greenwich meridian.
 

snowball

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Mallaig, being a lot further north, is nearer to the North Pole, where all lines of longitude come together.

Penzance is actually further in miles from its nearest point on the Greenwich meridian than Mallaig is. So Penzance would appear further west than Mallaig if you were to judge by National Grid eastings (the numbers along the top or bottom edge of an OS map).

(Those numbers are in kilometres, increasing eastward, and adjusted so that the line of longitude 2 degrees west of Greenwich has an easting of [4]00; that is the only line of latitude or longitude which coincides with a grid line.)
 
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Mcr Warrior

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@snowball. A persuasive counter-argument! Just how many miles/km due West of the Greenwich meridian are Penzance and Mallaig respectively?
 

snowball

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I wasn't suggesting that your answer in #7 was wrong, merely adding some context! I'll do the calculation and edit the answer into this post.
 
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