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

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driver_m

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Just had a quick look at actual town populations, not the whole borough . They're from wiki so some slight cynicism needed but we're not talking Daily Sport style reporting! Figures rounded.

Bolton 139.000
Blackburn 105,000
Oldham 104,000
Salford 104,000
St Helens 102,000
Rochdale. 96,000
Southport 90,000
Birkenhead 89,000
Burnley. 87,000
Bury 79,000

That's a quick snapshot of the North West. Very surprised to see my home town has gone over 100k but given the house building in recent years not surprised. So for the NW. It's Bolton. Anyone else want to throw in their regional candidates.
 
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Gwenllian2001

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Why should everywhere have a direct service to London. It is not the center of the universe. Lets get real and look at logical services
I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of places without a direct service but good connectivity. I can easily get to London with one change of train, as can most people in the south of Wales. Not that I can think of any reason to there.
 

Essexman

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I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of places without a direct service but good connectivity. I can easily get to London with one change of train, as can most people in the south of Wales. Not that I can think of any reason to there.

I don't think there are many places (with stations obviously) where you can't get to London with just one change of train. Whitby and stations on that line are the only ones that I can think of.
 

xotGD

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I don't think there are many places (with stations obviously) where you can't get to London with just one change of train. Whitby and stations on that line are the only ones that I can think of.
Barton-on-Humber branch.
 

DavidGrain

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Being pedantic I would, using modern terminology, define the question as meaning a town or city as being a local government district council or unitary authority and London as being Greater London or terminals therein. This in my opinion would rule out many of the answers given.

Speaking from my knowledge of the West Midlands area I would comment as follows

Walsall has regularly been quoted as the largest town in England without a direct rail link to London but this is planned to change.

West Bromwich has been mentioned but that is in Sandwell which has Stations in Smethwick, Rowley Regis. Langley Green and The Hawthorns as well as Sandwell and Dudley. all of which have trains to London. I think including the name of Dudley in the renaming of Oldbury (Bromford Lane) station as Sandwell and Dudley had more to do with local politics than geographical reality

Dudley has stations in Stourbridge, Cradley Heath, Lye, Old Hill. All with the exception of Stourbridge Town having at least one train per day from London

Redditch and Bromsgrove are two towns (and district councils) which have stations but not with a direct link to London
 

Kite159

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I don't think there are many places (with stations obviously) where you can't get to London with just one change of train. Whitby and stations on that line are the only ones that I can think of.

Stations on the Merseyrail Northern line, excluding Hunts Cross/South Parkway/Central/Moorfields & the northern terminals
 

maire23

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Burton upon Trent- 64,449.
Realise it’s relatively near Tamworth/Birmingham/Derby which do have direct links but no direct link.
 

B&I

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I don't think there are many places (with stations obviously) where you can't get to London with just one change of train. Whitby and stations on that line are the only ones that I can think of.


I wonder if there's a correlation between lines more than 1 change from London, and lines which were picked for closure. Not suggesting they were picked for closure on that basis alone, but perhaps it reflected a degree of real or perceived isolation
 

si404

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I don't think there are many places (with stations obviously) where you can't get to London with just one change of train.
There's a fair few stations around Manchester that are two - namely those with only service to Victoria, as long as they don't have direct service to Preston, Liverpool Lime St/South Parkway or Wigan North Western - do we count the 'outerchange' with Wallgate?. However, most of them are suburban or rural stops, especially as Southport still has 2 am peak trains via Piccadilly that make it only one change.

The sleeper deals with the Glasgow Queen Street Network, leaving just things like the Barton line.
 

driver_m

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St Helens actually has a population of 176843, its up there certainly

That's the borough figure which includes Newton le willows which is very much a separate town. They loathe being lumped in with us. Like counting Leigh for Wigan.
 

driver_m

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Being pedantic I would, using modern terminology, define the question as meaning a town or city as being a local government district council or unitary authority and London as being Greater London or terminals therein. This in my opinion would rule out many of the answers given.

Speaking from my knowledge of the West Midlands area I would comment as follows

Walsall has regularly been quoted as the largest town in England without a direct rail link to London but this is planned to change.

West Bromwich has been mentioned but that is in Sandwell which has Stations in Smethwick, Rowley Regis. Langley Green and The Hawthorns as well as Sandwell and Dudley. all of which have trains to London. I think including the name of Dudley in the renaming of Oldbury (Bromford Lane) station as Sandwell and Dudley had more to do with local politics than geographical reality

Dudley has stations in Stourbridge, Cradley Heath, Lye, Old Hill. All with the exception of Stourbridge Town having at least one train per day from London

Redditch and Bromsgrove are two towns (and district councils) which have stations but not with a direct link to London

Walsall would be at the bottom of that list I did for the NW. Pop. Is 68000 and borough is 233000. So nowhere near the biggest in England .
 

DavidGrain

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Walsall would be at the bottom of that list I did for the NW. Pop. Is 68000 and borough is 233000. So nowhere near the biggest in England .

In my post I defined a town as being a local government district council. No station in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall (which you tell me has a population of 233000) has a station with a direct service to London although there are plans for that to change.
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
no there isn't. Trains from Cardiff Bay terminate at Cardiff Queen Street and do not operate to Cardiff Central...

Except for the very first train to the Bay and the very last train from the Bay which do start from and continue to Central.

I was on the 23:54 from the Bay a few Fridays ago. This continued to Central arriving at 00:05.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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Except for the very first train to the Bay and the very last train from the Bay which do start from and continue to Central.

I was on the 23:54 from the Bay a few Fridays ago. This continued to Central arriving at 00:05.
I assume then it goes to Queen St first then doubles back to Central? IIRC there is no direct access to Central from the Bay Shuttle line...
 

A Challenge

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This service only operates in to Central direction (with 4 minutes for the reversal), as the train in the morning is the 06:15 ex Coryton, so there are two changes required to get there from London.

What is the situation with services to Reddish South and Denton, the Northern timetables page doesn't acknowledge they exist?
 

Kite159

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This service only operates in to Central direction (with 4 minutes for the reversal), as the train in the morning is the 06:15 ex Coryton, so there are two changes required to get there from London.

What is the situation with services to Reddish South and Denton, the Northern timetables page doesn't acknowledge they exist?

Before May you would have needed two changes to reach London, but since May you only need one (changing at Stockport).
 

A Challenge

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Before May you'd have to have gone across to Liverpool or Leeds as well wouldn't you (pre Ordsall Chord)?
 

DavidGrain

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I am confused here. The title of this thread is Largest Towns/Cities in Great Britain without a direct rail link to London.
So why are we talking about Cardiff Bay? Am I missing something? Is Cardiff Bay a town/city that I have never heard of?

 

A Challenge

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Somehow it got onto any station requiring two changes, I don't know how, as that has been done before I remember.

I forgot about Guide Bridge, was thinking the change would have to have been Stalybridge, which I think had TPX to Manchester Piccadilly anyway now I think about it, albeit running via Guide Bridge again...
 

61653 HTAFC

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