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Trivia: Largest towns/cities in Great Britain without a direct rail link to London

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Jorge Da Silva

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Could not find a list online or here so decided to create one. Whats are the largest towns without a direct timetabled link to London?
  • Includes towns with no rail station
  • Excludes suburbs of a city
 
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61653 HTAFC

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Huddersfield, Barnsley, Blackburn and Middlesbrough always crop up when this topic comes around. An awkward thing is defining what you mean by "largest" (population or land area, or density?) and where you get those figures from. For example Huddersfield is sometimes given the population figures for the whole borough of Kirklees which also includes Dewsbury and Batley along with significant places in between. It also means it DOES have a direct London service, albeit from Mirfield rather than Huddersfield.
 
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In the interest of minimising 'smart' answers, I suggest the OP constrain the question to largest towns or cities on the Great Britain mainland (i.e. those it is technically possible to access at the present time via National Rail), otherwise I fear that Tokyo will crop up soon.
 

tonysk14

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As the former two are part of Greater Manchester and the latter part of the urban area of Glasgow I would argue that these can can be discounted as they are effectively suburbs.
I would suggest that calling the city of Salford a suberb of Manchester is not a very safe thing to do.
 

61653 HTAFC

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I would suggest that calling the city of Salford a suberb of Manchester is not a very safe thing to do.
However it is accurate in practical terms. Bolton less so, as it is a stand-alone town by almost every measure. It's no more a suburb of Manchester than Reading is a suburb of London or Huddersfield a suburb of Leeds.
 

Dr Hoo

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From a ‘local authority’ perspective (rather than individual cities and towns) Wirral must be up there. population around 320,000.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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In the interest of minimising 'smart' answers, I suggest the OP constrain the question to largest towns or cities on the Great Britain mainland (i.e. those it is technically possible to access at the present time via National Rail), otherwise I fear that Tokyo will crop up soon.
what about Mumbai or Beijing? aren't they bigger than Tokyo?:D
 

Kite159

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However it is accurate in practical terms. Bolton less so, as it is a stand-alone town by almost every measure. It's no more a suburb of Manchester than Reading is a suburb of London or Huddersfield a suburb of Leeds.

Like Paisley is no more a suburb of Glasgow, a town in its own right which is near Glasgow.

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Stockton-on-Tees
 

61653 HTAFC

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Like Paisley is no more a suburb of Glasgow, a town in its own right which is near Glasgow.
My only reason for not commenting on Paisley was a lack of local knowledge. Salford on the other hand is a weird one, being right next to the urban centre of Manchester.
 

humbersidejim

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Indeed a 15/20 minute brisk walk from Piccadilly and you're over the Irwell into Salford.

Perhaps a fairer parameter would be towns without a direct link and not within X miles of a settlement that does.
 
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cf111

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As the former two are part of Greater Manchester and the latter part of the urban area of Glasgow I would argue that these can can be discounted as they are effectively suburbs.
Different local authority, different county, different postcode, different Sheriffdom ... I would say Paisley is a town in its own right.
 

swt_passenger

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These threads always reduce to an argument about what counts as ‘a place’.
Gateshead is a bit like Salford isn’t it. People of Gateshead just use Newcastle.
IIRC Gosport came up in a previous thread, but it’s only a quarter mile from Portsmouth Harbour, so what’s the real issue?
 

humbersidejim

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I'd certainly speak up for the combined towns of Cleethorpes, Grimsby and Scunthorpe along the South Humberside mainline.

Grand Central has publicly discussed submitting a proposal to run 4 return services a day via Doncaster, potentially splitting/joining their Bradford service.

Apparently this application is delayed pending a review of track access charges, but at this point I will defer to more knowledgeable forum members.
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
As the former two are part of Greater Manchester and the latter part of the urban area of Glasgow I would argue that these can can be discounted as they are effectively suburbs.

I can tell you that Paisley is not in anyway a suburb of Glasgow (also my partner can confirm as well, as she is originally from Paisley), and it is a post town in its own right. The PA postcode area is centred around Paisley, while Glasgow has G codes with the range being G1 to G53 within the city council area. G60 to G84 covers the suburbs in Dunbartonshire, parts of Lanarkshire, and East Renfrewshire (former Eastwood District).

Anybody who stands in County Square or at Paisley Cross and mentions that Paisley is part of Glasgow would see themselves dragged to the Gallow Green (once famous for burning witches in medieval times), hung, flogged, and have genitalia chopped off. The natives of Glasgow are referred to as Weegies, with the natives of Paisley being referred to Buddies (also the nickname of St Mirren FC - the one and only club where Alex Ferguson got the boot in 1978 after the directors lost patience).
 

cuccir

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For this sort of question I think why not go with the experts? The ONS define 'built-up areas' aka conurbations and I think this gets best at the spirit of this sort of question, rather than local authority boundaries. You can explore the boundaries on a map here.

To that end, Teeside is the biggest without a London service at 376,000 - Eaglescliffe falls close to but outside the ONS' boundary. Birkenhead is next; Barnsley third.
 
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ijmad

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Scarborough
Grimsby

Not the biggest, but well known places.
 

Antman

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Bolton's services have been ruined in the last few years. I used to get direct trains from Oxford home, I could get to Kensington Olympia, bournemouth, Weymouth, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham, even East Anglia And maybe Devon as well.

Now it's slow old boring connecting trains and bolton is clearly being downgraded in terms of service offering. It's a large independent town being turned into nothing more than a Manchester conurbation dormitory town
 
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