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Trivia: Station with most stops at other stations

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W230

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I might have made this sound more confusing than it should be. It might have been asked before. But anyway, while at Blackfriars, I noticed the SE services to Dover Priory, Ashford etc and realised that with the nature of the suburban and metro work you can get to a lot of different stations direct from London Blackfriars, even if it is on only one train a day. This is aided by the fact that it has services to the old South Eastern (some very limited) and South Central stations.

So my questions is, which station has the most direct connections to other stations?

Edit: This must have been asked before. But I can't find it. :?
 
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imagination

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Clapham Junction and Birmingham New Street have to be up there. Ditto Manchester Piccadilly
 
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Philip Phlopp

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Bristol TM.

Bristol has all the GWR services going all across their bit of the network, but it also has a large range of CrossCountry destinations, and the SWT services which give another large number of destinations.
 

abn444

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Surely Reading must be up there as well, given all the GWR services that use it, plus the SWT and CrossCountry trains that use it as well.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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Doncaster has alot, Cross Country /East Coast, Hull Trains, Grand Central, Northern (in West Yorks/South Yorks/Humber/Lincs/Notts), East Midlands (Leeds/Peterborough/Scarborough), TransPennine South.

That must be alot of stations, I haven't got all the timetables though.
 
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thenorthern

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As far as I know Birmingham New Street can reach more principal stations than anywhere else partly due to London having many separate terminal stations.

Overall though I would assume the station that can reach the most other stations would probably be one of the London Terminals as there as many small stations which only have services within the capital.

Outside of London I reckon Leeds probably has the most links to other stations given that its the the largest city with a single principal station.
 

Parallel

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I would've thought Cardiff Central would be pretty high with the multitude of stops on valley line services and Cardiff local routes. Then you also have services to Holyhead, Manchester Piccadilly (ATW & XC), Pembroke Dock, Fishguard Harbour, Milford Haven, HOWL, Portsmouth Harbour, Taunton, London Paddington, Nottingham etc

Manchester Piccadilly, Clapham Junction & Birmingham New Street I'd imagine would call at the most stations. Bristol Temple Meads would be high too.
 
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Busaholic

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At one time in the 1990s Penzance would have also been in the frame, with services to London Paddington via both Bristol and Castle Cary, to London Waterloo on Sundays via Salisbury, on Cross Country to Scotland via both east and west coast routes, right through to Aberdeen, services to Cardiff via Weston, Brighton via Southampton and Portsmouth, even a service to Manchester that went nowhere near Birmingham, plus local services to St Ives and, I seem to recollect, one a day to Falmouth with a reverse at Truro.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Realised I'd basically repeated the above post! Re:Waterloo to Manchester! Apologies! :oops:
In fact I hadn't! So yeah, Waterloo had Wales and Borders Alphaline services to Manchester via Bristol and the Marches, and to Cardiff extending to places like Maesteg and Pembroke Dock.

Waterloo also had services to Paris, Brussels, Lille, Eurodisney and selected calls to Avignon (summer) and Marne Le Vallée (winter).
 
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thenorthern

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Carlisle must be very high given then amount of services that terminate there and the extensions such as the single train from Nunthorpe, the weekly train to Nottingham and the DalesRail services all of which call at numerous small stations.

I reckon though Leeds is most likely the station that can reach the most other stations as most other cities have two or more separate principal stations such as in Birmingham where New Street and Moor Street each have direct services to certain stations that the other one dosen't have any services two. I would expect Sheffield, Newcastle and Edinburgh to be quite high on the list for the same reason.
 

glbotu

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I think Leeds is probably the answer.

Someone with more time and access to the live data from Network Rail than me could probably hack something up that figures this out. However:

Leeds has access to a large range of XC Destinations, especially as it's a stop on the old Aberdeen - Penzance, which must surely knock off an unbelievable number of destinations on its way.

Leeds has services on two mainlines to London, East Coast and the extensions to the Midland.

Leeds has the full North Transpennine Mainline as well as Calder Valley, not to mention the Settle and Carlisle and service to Morecambe via Lancaster.

Leeds is also the only hub for its own Commuter network, as opposed to Manchester which has both Piccadilly and Victoria for this, or London, which has directional services.
 

Abpj17

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Crewe?

Blackfriars might seem a lot, but the trains don't go further than the home counties + 1, some of the bristol/birmingham lines will stretch much further.
 

backontrack

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I think Leeds is probably the answer.

Someone with more time and access to the live data from Network Rail than me could probably hack something up that figures this out. However:

Leeds has access to a large range of XC Destinations, especially as it's a stop on the old Aberdeen - Penzance, which must surely knock off an unbelievable number of destinations on its way.

Leeds has services on two mainlines to London, East Coast and the extensions to the Midland.

Leeds has the full North Transpennine Mainline as well as Calder Valley, not to mention the Settle and Carlisle and service to Morecambe via Lancaster.

Leeds is also the only hub for its own Commuter network, as opposed to Manchester which has both Piccadilly and Victoria for this, or London, which has directional services.

I agree, it's probably Leeds.
 

Cherry_Picker

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I'd guess Leeds too or possibly Birmingham New Street. Having long distance services is all well and good but I think you really need an extensive suburban network connected to the station too to really be in with a shot.
 

W230

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I like the sound of Leeds also. But like CherryPicker says, an extensive suburban network is a must which was why Blackfriars for one came to mind though im sure other London Terminals could rival it. Also shouts for New Street and Temple Meads must be up there too.

If only there was an easy way to work it out! :lol:
 

krus_aragon

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I agree, it's probably Leeds.

I'd be surprised if it bested Birmingham New Street. As well as the entire XC network, there's Virgin services up to Scotland, LM serving much of the West Midlands and the southern WCML, and Arriva Wales calling all along the North Wales Coast and every request stop on the Cambrian.
 

D6975

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I'd be surprised if it bested Birmingham New Street. As well as the entire XC network, there's Virgin services up to Scotland, LM serving much of the West Midlands and the southern WCML, and Arriva Wales calling all along the North Wales Coast and every request stop on the Cambrian.

There are an awful lot of West Midlands stations that cannot be reached direct from New St since the Snow Hill through lines were reinstated.
I suspect this may be enough to tip the balance towards Leeds.
 
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thenorthern

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Sheffield and Carlisle must be very high. I would say the total number will be close.
 

Quakkerillo

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I did some manual calculation, which has Birmingham at approx 270 stations, Leeds at 210.

Birmingham:
XC 37 SW, 12 SE, 6NW, 18E, 39NE.
VT 6 South, 10 North
AW 42 Cambrian, 25 C. Coast
LMI: 41 on Cross-City, and 32 on all other lines

Leeds:
XC: 48
VTEC: 8
EMT: 9
FTP: 22
NT: 12 Harrogate, 6 to Hull/York, 36 heading to Doncaster/Sheffield/Goole, 24 to Hudd/Manch, 40 to Carlisle/Heysham, and 9 to Blackpool.

Hoping I missed nothing, but unless it's something big, I think Birmingham wins this.
And I only counted each station once. So Wolverhampton doesn't count 4 times.
 
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The Ham

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I did some manual calculation, which has Birmingham at approx 270 stations, Leeds at 210.

Birmingham:
XC 37 SW, 12 SE, 6NW, 18E, 39NE.
VT 6 South, 10 North
AW 42 Cambrian, 25 C. Coast
LMI: 41 on Cross-City, and 32 on all other lines

Leeds:
XC: 48
VTEC: 8
EMT: 9
FTP: 22
NT: 12 Harrogate, 6 to Hull/York, 36 heading to Doncaster/Sheffield/Goole, 24 to Hudd/Manch, 40 to Carlisle/Heysham, and 9 to Blackpool.

Hoping I missed nothing, but unless it's something big, I think Birmingham wins this.
And I only counted each station once. So Wolverhampton doesn't count 4 times.

If my counting is correct London Waterloo at 195 isn't that far behind Leeds, which could mean that Clapham Junction could be getting on for giving Birmingham a run for it's money.

According to this site http://www.whichplatform.co.uk/ I have counted about 280 desitinations.

Note I haven't checked to see if all these places are on a direct service and likewise I haven't checked for doubles (there is at least 1 which I spotted so only counted it once), however nor have I checked that there are none missing (again at least one, as Exeter is listed once when SWT serves Exeter Central and Exeter St Davids, but I didn't add that in),
 

xcooler123

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I have also done some counting for Birmingham New Street and got around 270. So it looks like it's between Clapham Junction and Birmingham New Street...

At least finding the station has the fewest direct connections to other stations is easy - Stourbridge Town with 1 (to Stourbridge Junction).
 
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JamesRowden

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I've just counted it up for London Bridge. I found the following:
  • Stations which presently have a through service from London Bridge by National Rail: 245
  • Stations which would presently have a service from London Bridge if not for the damage between Folkestone and Dover: 5
  • Stations which would have through services from London Bridge if the present Engineering works were not occurring: 21
  • Stations which presently have Underground through services from London Bridge but not NR services: 14 (4 would have NR through services if the present engineering works were not occurring)
  • Stations which have services to London Bridge but not from London Bridge: 19

This gives London Bridge a total of 300 if all of these are included.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
London Bridge will gain many more once the expanded Thameslink network starts operating.
 
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W230

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Impressive. So pre Thameslink works it was probably London Bridge and it sounds like it will be again in 2018 followed by (probably) Clapham Junction and New Street.
 

PaulLothian

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Have just done a quick count for Glasgow Central, which I also make 210!

However this should be noticeably increased during the Queen Street blockade, with services from Aberdeen and Inverness.
 
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